Juwai.com and IQI Global merger creates Asia’s biggest proptech group for global property

Juwai.com, the leading Chinese website for buyers of overseas property, and IQI Global, the top real estate network in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, today announced they would merge to create Asia’s biggest proptech group specialised in global new development properties. This is the first time a major real estate portal has merged with a major real estate group with thousands of agents. 

The new group, Juwai-IQI, will operate under the two separate brands: Juwai.com for online advertising and media services and IQI Global for project marketing, sales of property developments, and secondary market properties. 

Juwai.com currently reaches 3.3 million monthly users with its 2.8 million listings from 91 countries, and IQI Global has more than 5,000 salespeople in 25 offices across 15 countries. 

Real estate developers benefit from the combined Juwai-IQI as the first company to fully integrate the online marketing and offline sales functions for new developments. Juwai-IQI is the first company in the world with the ability to offer an end-to-end solution. It creates buyer interest in a development project by promotion to millions of consumers online and will complete transactions with its expert in-house sales agents. 

Real estate agents, who already advertise their brands and listings in China on Juwai.com, also benefit. Juwai-IQI, in addition to offering access to greater China, will now also provide access to cross-border property buyers from the ASEAN region, with its population of approximately 650 million, as well as the Middle East. These regions are the world’s biggest source for cross-border buyers. Notably, Juwai-IQI will continue to feed leads directly to real estate agents because its own agent network focuses on new development property in addition to the resale of existing property. 

The industry leaders on Juwai.com's Board of Directors will be of great value for the new company. The Board includes Cindy Chow, Executive Director of Alibaba’s Entrepreneurs Fund and Director of Alipay (HK) and Greg Paramor AO, Non-Executive Director of Charter Hall among other companies. Paramor is the former CEO of the US$9 billion Mirvac Group (ASX:MGR), past president of both the Property Council of Australia and the Investment Funds Association, the immediate past Chair of LJ Hooker, and an Officer of the Order of Australia. 

Daniel Ho, Managing Director of IQI Global, said, “This merger enables developers and agents to tap into the entire Asian market. Juwai-IQI is a one-stop solution combining online and offline marketing and sales. It serves developers and agents from everywhere and reaches buyers from China to Malaysia, from Australia to the Middle East and North America.”

Kashif Ansari, CEO of the IQI Global, added, “The combined group already completes on average 1,000 sales per month, deploys an exclusive and growing network of 5,000 salespeople, and possesses a very large database of consumers in China, India, the Middle East, and North Africa (MENA) region, and Southeast Asia.” 

Georg Chmiel, Executive Chairman of Juwai.com, said, “Juwai.com gives exposure to the market where up to half of all global property buyers originate from, and the IQI network is marketing and selling properties in many of the places where these buyers want to buy. This includes, in particular, Southeast Asia, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the US and Canada, the UK, Germany and France and other markets.” 

Chmiel was MD/CEO of iProperty group in SE Asia until it was acquired for approximately US$530m in 2016. He was also CFO at the REA Group during a period in which the share price climbed 17- fold. As MD/CEO of LJ Hooker Group, one of the largest real estate agency groups in Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, and a few smaller markets, he oversaw a business generating approximately 40,000 property sales per annum. 

“The newly merged group will now look to expand its reach further through organic growth and new partnerships in addition to the existing relationships which include the likes of ICBC and JD.com. We are combining two powerful Asian superbrands. We expect the combined group to be not only the largest global marketplace for real estate buyers from Asia, but also the most trusted.” 

SOURCE Juwai.com
Edited by Gordana Davila

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