Savills Investment Management has appointed Andrew Allen in a new role as head of product strategy and development.
Allen will lead Savills IM’s new product activity globally and will directly oversee product delivery in Europe. He will also work closely with the group's research & strategy and other teams on thought leadership initiatives and product innovation.
Based in London, he will report to Alex Jeffrey, global chief executive, and will join the global executive committee.
Allen joins Savills IM from Aberdeen Standard Investments, where he held several senior roles and was most recently global head of real estate investment research. He also worked for Stifel (formerly Oriel Securities) in real estate securities research.
Allen worked for Cordea Savills (now Savills IM) as head of research & strategy from 2004 to 2010.
The business expansion leads to a refocusing of the senior team, with James Bury taking on the role of head of Operations, overseeing technological change projects that impact all investment and client-facing activities. Scott Simpson will become head of Corporate Finance. Prior to this they were head of Product Development and head of Finance and Operations, respectively.
Bury oversaw Savills IM’s product development function during the recent period of successful progress, including launching a number of new discretionary funds. Following its launch in late 2019, the Savills IM European Logistics Fund 3 has raised over €375 mln in equity. Another pan-European logistics investment fund, VESALF I, was launched in partnership with Vestas Investment Management in late 2020 – among the first ever ‘blind’ funds raised solely from Korean institutional investors to invest in European real estate.