Making Money in Southeast Asia: Foreign Investment Challenge and Success

By the well known expert in foreign investment in Southeast Asia and author of Optimizing Distressed Loan Books published in 2011.

Southeast Asia has a history of throwing up golden investment nuggets for foreign investors. This book is about real estate, loans, and private investments at an institutional level within the region, and examines how and why some investors have made outsized returns while others have stumbled.

This book is not a sales pitch. On the contrary, much of it is focused on mistakes and cautionary tales that chronicle the pitfalls and disappointments suffered by many foreign investors. While based on the big-ticket, global institutional market, the lessons here may also resonate with smaller or individual investors.

The author has been based in the region for three decades, working in international real estate consultancies, investment banking, and with western private equity capital partners. The narrative is based upon his extensive knowledge gained from highly successful investment in real estate and real estate-backed debt.

This straight-talking, no-nonsense account offers valuable advice and anecdotes from these experiences, shared in a way that is illuminating and, in places, entertaining.

About the author

John Michael Sheehan moved from the United Kingdom to Asia in 1993, initially into the Thai real estate sector, and later the Philippines. In 1999, he joined Lehman Brothers' real estate principal finance and distressed debt team, based in Bangkok. In 2005, Lehman moved him back to Europe, based in Istanbul. For Lehman, he specialized in the acquisition and monetization of real estate-backed non-performing loans, operating across twenty global jurisdictions in Asia, Europe, and South America. He left Lehman Brothers 21 days before they went bankrupt in 2008, and returned home to Thailand.

In 2013, John took over the management of Lehman's former proprietary servicing platform in Bangkok. In 2017, 49 percent of the platform was acquired by New York Stock Exchange-listed Apollo Global Management. Over USD500 million was subsequently invested in Thailand by foreign institutional investors, achieving close to 30 percent returns on real estate investment over the next five years, which included the COVID pandemic period. Apollo's shares were purchased by a local management buyout in 2023.

John is also the author of Optimizing Distressed Loan Books. Published in 2011 in the UK, the book was widely purchased across Europe, North America, and Asia. It became a useful textbook for central and commercial banks and real estate investors seeking to minimize loss and maximize collections from distressed, real estate backed debt.