Real estate private equity funds that made aggressive investments in the mainland market at high prices prevailing in 2006 and last year are now being forced to offload the under-performing assets.

Harvest Capital, a private equity fund manager that manages two international funds with equity of over US$1bn, says it has received four offers from international funds seeking to offload assets.

'Some are offloading their portfolios at a very attractive yield or even at below cost,' said Ren Rong, chief executive of Harvest Capital, which is 90% owned by state-owned China Resources (Holdings).

He did not identify the sellers but said he expected to see more deals from his peers available in the market as the financial turmoil deepened.

South China Morning Post