RESTON, VA-Net lease company Calkain Cos. is steadily growing its international footprint: the company has just inked an exclusive partnership with the China-based Platinum Investment Corp. to source deals in that market. This transaction follows a recent deal it forged with an undisclosed brokerage firm in Miami to focus on South America.

EVP David Sobelman returned from China last week, he tells GlobeSt.com exclusively--and already there is some $50 million of transactions in the company’s pipeline. “This has been a deal long in the making, however it's moving very fast for us,” he says. One of the partnership’s goals--which Sobelman describes as lofty but realistic--is to generate $100 million a year from the venture. With $50 million already under consideration, he observes, it is doable.

Calkain hopes to expand into other foreign markets as well. Europe, says Sobelman, is a target region that the firm has often considered. China, though, will likely be the market to keep its pipeline full for the foreseeable future. For all the talk of a hard landing with the economy, there has also been plenty of anecdotal evidence that China nationals see US property as a bargain.

Earlier this summer, for example, the National Association of Realtors reported that buyers from China and Hong Kong were the second-largest group of foreign buyers of homes in the US for the 12-month period ending in March. Indeed, Sobelman reports that demand for Calkain’s services and expertise in China is being fueled by the country’s high-net worth investors. “These Chinese nationals are interested in US real estate and specifically in net lease properties for their portfolios.”