Singapore’s CapitaLand shed 10% of China staff in 2025 amid downturn

SINGAPORE – CapitaLand Investment said its workforce in China plunged by about 10 per cent, or 365 people, in 2025 as the asset manager continues to grapple with a major real estate crisis in Asia’s largest economy.

The Singapore-listed company’s overall headcount shrunk to 9,542 in 2025, according to a global sustainability report it published late on May 30, down from 10,158 a year prior. That marks the first drop in its global employee count since 2022. 

China remains the country with the largest portion of the firm’s workforce, but its share of the total fell to 33 per cent from 35 per cent in 2024. The property-focused manager, majority owned by Singapore’s Temasek, is grappling with a years-long property downturn in China that continues to afflict its sizeable portfolio there. 

CapitaLand Investment’s headcount at its Singapore base also saw a reduction, though the proportion stayed unchanged at 24 per cent of global employees. India, a market where the company is expanding, bucked the trend, with its proportion of global staff rising to 6 per cent from 5 per cent in 2024.

The company incurred a fair value loss of US$427 million (S$546 million) in China in 2025 and continued to see rents under pressure across its assets there in the first quarter, ranging from offices to retail malls to business parks.

It has tried to adopt what it calls a “China-for-China” strategy that involves wooing local investors and listing local real estate investment trusts. Nearly $23 billion of the $50 billion of assets it manages under its private funds are in China.

CapitaLand Investment’s turnover rate jumped to 24 per cent in 2025, from 21 per cent in 2024, though it said it has not conducted major layoffs. Bloomberg News earlier reported that it is in merger discussions with Mapletree Investments, another property manager owned by Temasek, which could lead to a sizeable combination, including a carve-out of its China assets. BLOOMBERG