Grosvenor has agreed ‘a small test trade’ with Royal Bank of Scotland in Japan’s first property derivative deal. Financial Times


The maiden Japanese deal will be welcomed international investors, who over the past year have bought heavily into the country’s direct property market, attracted by the country’s relatively low property price inflation and the breadth of the opportunities in the $2,000bn real estate market.

Nick Scarles, Grosvenor’s finance director, declined to say whether the company had taken the long or short end of the deal.

But he hinted Grosvenor might use derivatives to increase Japanese property exposure in the future: ‘Since the [Japanese] bubble burst, there has been very little movement in the market compared with the rest of the world.’