(Yicai Global) Feb. 22 -- The largest real estate investment trust in Asia, Hong Kong's Link REIT, is paying CNY6.6 billion (USD1 billion) to buy the Central Walk shopping mall in Shenzhen as it looks switch out local assets for those on the Chinese mainland.

Link will buy all shares in the mall's holding company Central Walk Barbados from owners Liu Weihong and Liu Ergang, the trust's Hong Kong-based operator operator Link Asset Management said in a statement on Feb. 20. It will pay partly in cash and also take on debt to fund the deal, Link's first in Shenzhen.

The purchase is the first time in three years a company has outright bought a Shenzhen shopping mall, as institutional investors have shied away from the city's commercial property market and opted to pump their cash into nearby Hong Kong and its favorable business environment.

But Link is doing quite the opposite, Alan Fung, managing director of South China at Colliers International, told Yicai Global. The trust is adjusting the Mainland-Hong Kong split in its portfolio to about 30 to 70 from 10 to 90, he said, commenting on Link's recent sale of HKD20 billion (USD2.6 billion) in property in the special administrative region.

Central Walk, which covers five stories and 83,900 square meters in the southern metropolis's Futian district, was renting out all of its units as of the end of last year, pulling in USD23.8 million a month from sales, management and other revenue streams.

Its addition to Link's portfolio will give the trust a presence in all four of China's traditional first-tier cities after earlier acquisitions in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Shenzhen is a priority city in China's blueprints for the Greater Bay Area -- which has high consumption demand and is on track to see a 14 percent rise in population over the next five years, according to Link. Grabbing property close to the city center fits the buyer's investment strategy and Link plans to hold onto the mall as a long-term investment, it added.

Editor: James Boynton