Digital Colony, PSP Investments, RREEF Property Trust, First State Investments, Severn Trent Services, Threadmark, Bentall Kennedy, Cloudscraper, Octopus Property

Digital Colony  Steven Sonnenstein has joined the digital infrastructure investor as a managing director. Sonnenstein was most recently a senior director at the Canadian pension investment manager PSP Investments. Before joining PSP, Sonnenstein worked for Brookfield Asset Management in its private equity and infrastructure groups with particular focus and experience in South America.

RREEF Property Trust – Julianna Ingersoll will assume a new role as president and CEO. Ingersoll will assume responsibility for the overall leadership, strategic direction and investment performance of RREEF. For the past three years, she was the COO of RREEF and was the CFO before that. Before joining RREEF, Ingersoll served in a number of strategic corporate investment roles across the real estate business for parent company DWS and Deutsche Bank. Ingersoll joined Deutsche Bank in 2001 as an analyst in the investment bank division.

First State Investments – The UK subsidiary of Australian fund manager First State has hired Nick Grant as director of infrastructure investments within its European direct infrastructure team. He was most recently CEO of water supply company Severn Trent Services for the UK, Ireland and Italy, a role he held since 2014. He has also worked for major UK utilities companies Centrica and British Gas. 

ThreadmarkMarty Alston is joining the fundraising firm as a senior vice president. Alston joins from Bentall Kennedy. Prior to Bentall Kennedy, he was managing director of business development for owner operator Fifield Companies, and a partner at Capri CapitalAlston will be based in New York.

CloudscraperKai Presser has been appointed to head the newly launched commercial real estate exchange’s Germany and CEE countries business. With over 20 years’ experience in capital markets and structured finance, Presser has held senior management positions in Bloomberg, Societe Generale, BNP Paribas, Royal Bank of Canada and Sal Oppenheim. Presser will be based in Frankfurt.

Octopus Property – Gavin Eustace has been promoted to lead the specialist property lender’s residential development arm. Eustace will head the team that offers bespoke loans for a range of residential development projects, including purpose-built student accommodation, build-to-rent and traditional develop-to-sell, across the UK. Prior to joining Octopus Property in 2014, Eustace spent five years in the corporate real estate team at Lloyds Banking Group.