Barings, Pioneer Point Partners, Aviva Investors, JLL, Bidwells, Statkraft, Goldman Sachs, Pretium, CBRE IM, Navian

Barings – The real estate investment manager has appointed Paul Smith as a director in its UK asset management team and Philip Smith as a senior associate. Paul Smith joins from Aviva Investors where he was responsible for the asset management of 15 UK assets. Philip Smith has gained experience over the past six and a half years in JLL’s asset management team, focusing on value-add opportunities across mostly industrial and office assets. During his time at the global agency, Philip Smith also served a secondment to AEW Europe, where he worked to deliver attractive returns on shopping centres, office and logistic assets in the UK, Nordics and Spain. Based in London, Paul Smith and Philip Smith will primarily work on development and refurbishment projects across the UK.

CBRE Investment ManagementJaap Snellen has been appointed to the sector leadership team as office property platform lead EMEA. In this newly created role, he will be responsible for defining and delivering strategies for asset management and for the firm’s third-party property management service providers, as well as maintaining operations across the office platform. The role has been created to deliver on the office property platform’s strategic objectives, to enhance investment and sustainability performance and to continue improving on the service CBRE IM provides to investor and tenant clients. Reporting to John Mulqueen, head of offices EMEA, the pair will work closely together along with the heads of asset management, asset managers and analysts across the European business. Snellen has worked for CBRE IM for over 16 years and most recently was head of office asset management for Netherlands and Belgium. Succeeding him in the role will be Saskia de Nie, who has over 11 years of industry experience and most recently was CBRE IM’s director of asset management in the Netherlands responsible for a number of separate account mandates and for assets in the Dutch office portfolio.

Pioneer Point PartnersEdoardo Luciani has been promoted to partner. Luciani joined Pioneer in 2010 and has been an integral member of the investment team. Luciani joined the firm having previously spent six years in private equity consulting at LEK and Accenture. Carmen Cheung has joined from Strategy& where for six years she focused on strategic and economic advisory in the utilities sector. Jemima Atkins has joined from Allianz Capital Partners where she was a sustainability specialist for four years focused on debt and equity investments. Atkins also spent three years at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in the acquisition and infrastructure finance team.

Bidwells – Andy Fewings has been appointed as group partner. Fewings joins from European renewable energy generator Statkraft, where he held the role of principal land manager. Fewings has depth of experience in onshore wind, solar, battery, grid services and hydrogen. He was a leading member of the team that delivered a project in the first ever round of battery energy storage enhanced frequency response tenders back in 2016 and at that point worked for Element Power, an Irish and UK wind development business that was acquired by Statkraft in 2018. 

NavianChristopher May has been appointed head of UK to lead the company expansion in the UK Market. May has over 30 years of experience in finance, starting as a mortgage broker for a large American insurance company. He later launched his own mortgage packaging company, which became the country’s largest originator of specialist mortgages and offered intermediary members access to its marketing, compliance, IT facilities, and a panel of lenders. May’s goal is to digitalise, connect and reduce the complexity of funding and execution of development projects while delivering more security and sustainability of profits for developers and investors.

PretiumAndrea Gift Allan has joined as real estate managing director, to lead the firm’s affordable housing investments across the US. Allan will partner with internal and external stakeholders to develop and manage Pretium’s affordable housing portfolio, in alignment with the firm’s key business and social impact goals. This will include serving as a strategic advisor to Progress Residential’s affordable housing team as they engage with residents, local housing authorities, and community partners to meet persistent and growing affordable housing demand in markets across the country. She spent more than two decades at Goldman Sachs, where she most recently served as managing director and COO of the Urban Investment within the asset management division.