Cordea Savills, the UK-based international property investment manager, has launched a full service investment platform in Japan.

The new platform will aim to build upon the existing Merchant Capital business, an independent real estate focused Japanese merchant bank.

Merchant Capital was founded in 2005 by members of Merrill Lynch’s Japanese real estate principal investment business, and it invests on behalf of a range of institutional and private investors.  The two managing partners, Tom Silecchia and Tadaaki Kurozumi, will continue to work with their existing clients as well as new investors to form part of the Cordea Savills management team in Asia.

Cordea Savills said that its Japan platform will service clients looking to invest in Japan, an increasingly favoured destination for capital. Merchant Capital’s core business provides access to distressed debt, bank work-out mandates and a broad range of other real estate investment opportunities, while Cordea Savills has fund structuring expertise and access to international institutional investors. In addition, Cordea Savills Japan will work closely with Tokyo-based Savills Asset Advisory, an asset management subsidiary of Savills with 13 employees and current assets under management of JPY148 billion (around $1.48 billion), the firm said.

Products offered by Cordea Savills Japan will range from pooled funds through to single asset mandates. The initial focus will be both on the commercial and residential sectors where exposure can be gained to a range of risk/return profiles.

Cordea Savills is an international property investment manager with offices in London, Milan, Munich, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Stockholm, Luxembourg, Paris, Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo. As at 31 March 2013, Cordea Savills and other Savills Group companies managed a total of $10,220 million in assets.