Rothchild, Principal Real Estate, AEW, Townsend Group, KKR, LaSalle, Amber Infrastructure, Meag Munich Ergo, PwC, GHD, Gresham House, ADIA, Scottish Equity Partners, Neptune Energy, Crestbridge, Hines, Greystar Real Estate, M7 Real Estate, Cushman & Wakefield, RE5Q, AREF, Alecta Real Estate
KKR – The global investment firm has appointed Simon Marrison as senior advisor for real estate in Europe. Marrison, who joins on 7 September, will advise KKR on real estate investments across Europe and help contribute to the growth of KKR’s real estate business in the region. Marrison will retire as chairman of LaSalle Investment Management’s European business in July, after a 19-year career at the company, serving as CEO for Europe between 2007 and 2019, head of continental Europe from 2001 to 2007 and chairman since July 2019. Prior to joining LaSalle, he was country manager of Rodamco France. He is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and a member of the RICS Global Investment Risk Management Forum. Marrison has served as a non-executive director of TR Property Investment Trust since 2011 and will become a senior independent director in July.
Principal Real Estate Investors – John Kropke has been appointed managing director of REOC, the asset manager’s US and Europe real estate operating company line of business. Kropke will lead plans within Principal Global Investors to rebuild and expand its international REOC capabilities. He most recently served as a partner of The Townsend Group and portfolio manager in its special situations group.
M7 Real Estate – The asset manager has opened an office in Dublin and appointed James Smith asset manager in Ireland. Dublin will be M7’s 16th office location and will expand its pan-European network to 14 countries. Smith joins M7 from Cushman & Wakefield Ireland where he spent over three years within the industrial and logistics team. He will be responsible for executing asset management strategies and sourcing new opportunities for the various mandates across M7’s Irish portfolio. Smith’s experience in the Irish market includes positions at Knight Frank Ireland and Savills Commercial Ireland.
Alecta Real Estate – The domestic property arm of Sweden’s largest pension fund Alecta has appointed three new staff to positions created as part of its planned investment expansion. Johanna Boltzius has been appointed to head up transactions, Malin Lövemark has been hired to take charge of administration and Karolin Forsling is to be in charge of projects and urban development. Boltzius currently works for Alecta as transaction manager, while Lövemark joins the firm from Folksam - having previously worked for AMF’s property arm. Forsling, meanwhile, currently heads up her own urban development business, and worked for AMF Real Estate before that. Boltzius would begin work in her new role immediately, with Lövemark and Forsling set to join the firm in the autumn.
Amber Infrastructure – The specialist international infrastructure investment manager strengthened its presence in Europe with the appointment of Max Heilgemair, Christian Roy and Jedrzej Sanok. Heilgemair, who joins the existing team in Munich, will work on investments across a variety of infrastructure sectors throughout Europe. He is a former senior investment manager at Meag Munich Ergo. He previously worked at UniCredit Bank. Based in Prague, Roy joins Amber from PwC where he worked as a senior advisor on a broad range of infrastructure projects across CEE and internationally. Sanok joins from Rothchild & Co, having worked in both London and Warsaw. Most recently Sanok was a member of the European infrastructure team. Sanok will also support the build-out of Amber’s CEE presence and will be based in Warsaw.
AREF – The association of real estate funds has appointed Adrian Benedict, head of real estate solutions at Fidelity International, as the new chair of its board. Benedict will be joining the board, which represents sixty-seven funds with a collective net asset value of over £72bn. He will also be joined by new board member, Anne Breen, head of investment strategy at Aberdeen Standard.
AEW – The real estate manager has promoted Jeremy Convert to head of investments France. Convert, who has been with AEW since 2013 as an executive director in the investment team, will take over from Laurent Babelon who is retiring from the firm after a 40-year career in real estate. He will lead the investment team in Paris with responsibility for all investments in France on behalf of AEW’s European funds and separate account clients. Thierry Locatelli has also been appointed deputy head of the investment team in Paris to support Convert. Prior to joining AEW in 2013, Convert was head of investment banking for Credit Suisse’s real estate team covering France and Benelux. He has previously held positions at Lehman Brothers, Societe Generale and Archon Group France.
Gresham House British Strategic Investment Fund – Peter Bachmann has joined as a fund manager. Bachmann joins from Scottish Equity Partners. Before that, Bachmann co-founded the Environmental Infrastructure Development Company, a specialist investor and developer of renewable energy and waste-to-energy assets. He was also head of secondary infrastructure and renewables at Land Securities Trillium and partner at PPP/PFI focused private equity fund SMIF – now Semperian. Tristan Bungaroo joined as an investment associate in June and will focus on infrastructure. Bungaroo was previously at Neptune Energy, where he was business development lead and Scotiabank where he was in the infrastructure and oil and gas investment banking team.
Greystar Real Estate Partners – Covadonga Sanz Llaca has been appointed as director of asset management for southern Europe. Based in Madrid, Llaca will be responsible for the development and implementation of asset management strategies for the purpose-built student accommodation and multifamily portfolios across Southern Europe, including Spain. She will work as part of Greystar’s vertically integrated pan-European platform, which incorporates expertise in investment, development and operations. She was previously at Hines for five years, latterly as a senior associate in the asset management team. Prior to Hines, she worked at AXA and PwC.
GHD – Paul Nathanail has joined the services firm as technical director – contaminated land. Nathanail is currently chair of the National Brownfield Forum, honorary research associate at the British Geological Survey and deputy chair of SiLC Register. He joins GHD from Land Quality Management, where he had been a Managing Director since 1997. He has also previously served as professor of engineering geology at the University of Nottingham from 2007 to 2018, principal lecturer at Nottingham Trent University from 1994 to 1998, and principal geoscientist at George Wimpey from 1987 to 1994. Senior environmental scientist Andrew Gillett and lead environmental scientist Richard Ogden have also joined GHD from Land Quality Management alongside Nathanail.
RE5Q – The AI-powered real estate data provider has appointed Bryan Dove to its board as non-executive director. Dove spent five years at Skyscanner, most recently as its CEO and previously as the CTO. He previously held leadership roles at Amazon AWS, Skype, and Microsoft.
ADIA – Tom Arnold has stepped down as global real estate head at the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and has been replaced temporarily by Salem AlDarmaki. AlDarmaki, deputy director of real estate and infrastructure, will take on the acting role to lead the real estate business as ADIA searches for a new global head. Arnold, who took up the global head of real estate role in June 2018, has decided to relocate back to the US to be closer to his family.
Crestbridge – Michael Newton, head of institutional client operations, will move to Luxembourg to support the growth of the fund Services team. His role has been extended so he is also responsible for growing the fund services offering from Luxembourg. Newton will continue to oversee client-facing activities within the group’s fund, real estate and corporate services teams with a view to ensuring clients consistently receive the highest possible levels of service. He joined Crestbridge in 2017. Prior to joining Crestbridge, Newton was a managing director and senior vice president of a global fund administrator and custodian in Jersey.
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