KEY POINTS:
A new funds management business eyeing the property market has snared one of the sector's experts.
Shane Solly, former investment manager at Goldman Sachs JBWere Asset Management, is about to join former ING chief investment officer Rebecca Thomas at Mint Asset Management in Auckland.
Thomas said yesterday that property was one of the sectors the new business would be investing in soon and Solly would start with Mint next month.
Before Goldman Sachs, Solly was senior investment manager at ING and has an extensive knowledge of the listed property sector.
Thomas plans to take her new start-up to a venture managing $1 billion of shares, bonds and currency and expects real estate to be included in the assets under management.
Whether this takes the form of starting a new listed property vehicle or buying into existing entities is yet to be decided.
"It's too early to say," Thomas said. "It depends on what feedback we get from institutions."
She said Mint would have firmer proposals about its property investments by the middle of next year.
