OREANDA-NEWS. Sumitomo Corporation has acquired an office building in the business center of San Diego, California (US) through its US subsidiary Sumitomo Corporation of America (head office: New York, US; representative: Kazuhiro Takeuchi).

The acquired building is an office tower currently in operation whose primary tenants include Bank of America and San Diego County. Situated in the Gaslamp Quarter amidst a concentration of commercial buildings, the building is conveniently within walking distance of Petco Park and San Diego Bay and a few minutes by car from San Diego International Airport.

With San Diego expected to enjoy a growing population and more jobs in future, limited supply in the office building market should improve tenancy rates and boost rent. Taking advantage of these favorable conditions and leveraging the management know-how it has fostered in the office building business, Sumitomo Corporation will seek to enhance the value of this property as a high-quality rental asset.

Real estate investment from Asia in the US as a whole has been booming in recent years, and the June 2013 revision of J-REIT regulations has set the stage to facilitate investment from Japan in overseas real estate. In light of these circumstances, Sumitomo Corporation of America will put to use its experience and know-how in the US to offer support services to Japanese and other international investors for real estate investment in the US.

The Sumitomo Corporation Group, inclusive of Sumitomo Corporation and Sumitomo Corporation of America, has been involved in US real estate investment for more than 30 years and has real estate investments elsewhere in such countries as Indonesia, China, Thailand, Singapore, the UK, and Brazil. The Sumitomo Corporation Group's investment property holdings total about 500 billion yen, of which overseas holdings make up about 50 billion. Plans are underway to construct and enhance a well-balanced portfolio that will boost total holdings to about 600 billion by 2019 and more than double overseas holdings to about 100 billion yen.