Tim Morris and Philipp Westermann have been named L&G’s global real assets co-heads, following the firm’s majority stake acquisition in Proprium Capital Partners.
L&G has appointed Proprium’s co-managing partner Morris to take primary responsibility for leading L&G’s global real assets proposition, with fellow partner Westermann leading the continued growth and alignment of Proprium, “providing strategic direction and operational support” across the broader L&G real assets business.
Westermann’s leadership will be “critical” to Proprium’s expansion following L&G’s 75% acquisition, L&G said.
Morris, a founder and co-managing partner of Proprium, is also CIO for Proprium. Prior to launching Proprium, Morris was a managing director of Morgan Stanley and CIO of Morgan Stanley’s real estate special situations funds.
Morris spent over 24 years working at Morgan Stanley holding various roles for the Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing platform, including global CFO, global COO, head of Asia and co-head of Europe.
Prior to joining Proprium as a founding team member, Westermann was co-CEO of Motel One. Until 2010, Westermann was a managing director at Morgan Stanley, where he was European portfolio manager for Morgan Stanley’s real estate special situations fund and headed the UK real estate investing business.
Before joining the real estate group, he worked for Morgan Stanley Capital Partners. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley in 2002, Westermann was a VP at Lazard.
Eric Adler, CEO, asset management at L&G, said: “Tim and Philipp have built a proven partnership over many years and their appointment is a signal of how well our organisations are working together. They bring complementary strengths and a shared vision to drive our Real Assets strategy forward and I am delighted to welcome them to our leadership team.
“Their appointments mark the next phase of our Asset Management strategy and reposition the business for long-term global growth.”
António Simões, group CEO at L&G, said: “Global scale and accelerated growth in real assets is central to achieving our ambitions in private markets. Bringing Tim and Philipp into L&G is another important milestone as we build a growing, simpler and better-connected business, that delivers value for our clients and shareholders.”
Morris and Westermann added: “It is a very exciting moment to be joining L&G to lead the firm’s global real assets proposition. Combining Proprium’s expertise and entrepreneurial approach with L&G’s scale and balance sheet capital, puts us in a formidable position to attract further third party capital and deliver innovative, market leading real assets strategies.
“We believe our shared growth ambitions across the investment spectrum will unlock substantial growth in new markets and drive significant value creation for our clients.”
The appointments follow L&G’s acquisition of a majority stake in Proprium last May. Founded in 2013 as a spin-out from Morgan Stanley’s real estate special situations team, Proprium manages $3.5bn (€4bn) in assets across the residential, student housing, hospitality and logistics sectors.
L&G, which has been investing in the UK real estate market since 1971, manages £19.2bn in assets. Its broader real assets portfolio, which includes infrastructure ventures like the L&G NTR Partnership, sits within a £70bn private markets platform.
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