Warren Buffet once said to treat life as if you only had a 20-slot punch card – representing all the investments that you got to make in a lifetime. We truly ask ourselves, “How many golden opportunities are there in a lifetime where one can invest with a significant margin of safety?”

The founders, Alan and Bryan, met at the University of Southern California, where they were undergraduate students looking to pursue a career in Business and Finance. Alan went on to become an investment banker while Bryan took the hedge fund route. Both career paths ultimately led Alan and Bryan to learn major differences between Price and Value.

Alan learned that leverage, restructuring, and IPOs, can drastically affect the value of a company, even though you do not necessarily have to inject the same amount of capital as what a Company is worth.

Bryan learned that a Company’s intrinsic value may not be fully reflected on the market price of a stock. That means he was able to buy stocks at a discount, paying a price which was only a fraction of what it was truly valued.

AB Capital Investment Limited was formed in the midst of a Global Pandemic, specifically Covid-19. Alan, who has always had an avid in interest in the real estate space, saw that the golden opportunity had appeared. We asked ourselves, “Which industry would property prices decline the most, whilst the margin of safety be significant enough to invest?”

After careful screening and research, we found that Japan’s hospitality property prices have plummeted for a multitude of reasons during the pandemic, from supply and demand imbalance, event-driven mispricing, flight bans from international travel, the lacking of the availability of hotel acquisition loans, to overall pessimism from the shutdown of businesses.

AB Capital Investment Limited, a SFC Type 9 licensed real estate private equity firm that invests in Asia Pacific properties, formed Fund I looking to capture and invest in this very type of opportunity. With an initial focus in Japan, AB Capital intends to source and acquire opportunistic real estate investments that aim to deliver fixed income and capital growth in the short-medium term to our investors. 

The founders bought 4 hotels during COVID, namely Folio Sakura Shinsaibashi Osaka by Banyan Tree in Osaka in December 2020, Prostyle Ryokan Tokyo Asakusa Hotel in June 2021, Hotel LiVEMAX Shinjuku Kabukicho Meijidori in March 2022, and APA Hotel Kamataeki-Higashi in Tokyo in May 2023, all of which they were able to secure one of the very first non-recourse hotel acquisition financings from local banks since the outbreak of COVID-19. Building on this momentum, the founders subsequently expanded their portfolio with the acquisition of Randor Hotel Namba Osaka Suites and Randor Residential Hotel Kyoto Suites in July 2024, followed by Vessel Inn Asakusa Tsukuba Express and APA Hotel Keikyu Kamata Ekimae Nishi in October 2024. Looking ahead, the Fund targets to accumulate another 5 - 7 hotels in the coming year.

In 2021, AB Capital opens its Japan office, with Yiming Yin joining as the Senior Consultant, and subsequently Kusumine Enami joining as the Managing Partner and Japan Representative in 2023.

AB Capital will continue to strive to find stability for our investors by capturing unique opportunities that provide steady and attractive capital growth. We will, continue to adhere what we stand for – by “Finding Certainty in Uncertainties”.