<article>The New York-based private equity firm <a href="https://www.dealstreetasia.com/?s=Warburg Pincus" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Warburg Pincus</a> has led a $227 million investment round in China&#8217;s parking bays operator <a href="https://www.dealstreetasia.com/?s=Sunsea Parking" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sunsea Parking</a>, according to a statement.</article>

The New York-based private equity firm <a href="https://www.dealstreetasia.com/?s=Warburg Pincus" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Warburg Pincus</a> has led a $227 million investment round in China&#8217;s parking bays operator <a href="https://www.dealstreetasia.com/?s=Sunsea Parking" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sunsea Parking</a>, according to a statement.
The financing was also joined by Warburg-backed <a href="https://www.dealstreetasia.com/?s=Red Star Macalline" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Red Star Macalline</a>, the largest furniture retail chain in China.
As part of the commitments, Red Star Macalline has agreed to grant the operating rights of the parking lots in its over 200 furniture and shopping malls to Sunsea Parking, the statement added.
“Private car ownership in China has been growing at over 10 percent per year and China is now the largest automobile market in the world, but the amount of parking spaces has simply not kept up. By way of example, the ratio of car parking spaces to cars in Beijing is only 1/3 the level of Hong Kong. Such supply imbalances make this an opportune time to partner with China’s leading car park operator,&#8221; said Joseph Gagnon, Managing Director and Head of Real Estate in Asia of Warburg Pincus.
“Parking assets will become the next most attractive real estate asset class because it generates steady cash revenue with potential of further financing options such as REITs,” added Liang Yan, Chairman of Sunsea Parking.
Founded in 2006, Sunsea provides services for the entire value chain of parking management, including urban parking, parking lot planning and design, intelligent parking business, operation, investment and construction.
It currently operates nearly 200,000 parking spaces across 40 Chinese cities including Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou.
According to a recent Bain &amp; Co. report, the conflict between the lack of parking lots and the growing number of cars has become a severe problem in China, which also opens up new opportunities for the parking industry.
The domestic parking market in China has reached a scale of 420 billion yuan last year, and is set to reach more than 1 trillion yuan by 2021, it said.
“We were very impressed with the significant revenue increase of over 50 percent in our parking bays managed by Sunsea, so we decided to contract all of our 300,000 parking spaces to the company. We are confident that the parking assets will become another important revenue generator for the group,&#8221; said Jianhong Li, Executive President of Red Star Macalline.
Since 1994, Warburg Pincus has invested over $8 billion and supported the growth of about 100 Chinese companies. The firm has invested over $3 billion in more than 20 Chinese real estate companies such as ESR, Mofang Apartments, D&amp;J China, 7 Days Inn, Sunshine 100 and Guangzho R&amp;F.
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Sunsea would be granted the operational rights of 300,000 parking spaces at Red Star Macalline’s malls in China.

Warburg leads $227m investment in China's parking bays operator Sunsea

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Warburg leads $227m investment in China's parking bays operator Sunsea

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