The global co-heads of real estate at Aberdeen Standard Investments are stepping down, the manager announced as it appointed Peter McKellar and Neil Slater to lead a combined private markets business as head and deputy respectively.
Aberdeen Standard said it plans to launch a £60bn (€67.5bn) private markets franchise encompassing infrastructure, natural resources, private credit, private equity and real estate.
As part of the new structure, Slater has also been appointed global head of real estate, succeeding David Paine and Pertti Vanhanen, currently global co-heads of real estate.
The duo were named co-heads in 2017 following Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management’s merger. Prior to that Paine and Vanhanen headed up the respective real estate businesses of Standard Life and Aberdeen.
At the time McKellar, head of Standard Life unit SL Capital and head of private markets solutions at Standard Life Investments, was also named as global head of private and infrastructure equity at the merged business.
Slater was the CEO and representative director of Aberdeen Standard Investments Japan following the merger between Aberdeen Investment Management KK and Standard Life Investments Japan in December 2017.
Commenting on today’s announcement, Rod Paris, CIO at Aberdeen Standard Investments, said Paine and Vanhanen “have done a fantastic job building one of the leading real estate businesses in Europe”.
Paris said Slater has been handed the baton to “build on these very strong foundations to grow our real estate and overall private markets franchise”.
McKellar said Aberdeen Standard has a strong heritage in a wide range of private market capabilities having managed money for clients in these areas over more than 30 years.
“Structural change and evolving market environments with investors increasingly allocating to non-public market assets makes it even more important to have a fully integrated approach to private markets to enable us to deliver the right solutions to clients.”
