BlackRock has appointed Thomas Müller as managing director and portfolio manager within the firm’s European real estate business.
BlackRock has appointed Thomas Müller as managing director and portfolio manager within the firm’s European real estate business.
Based in London, he will work with BlackRock Real Estate teams in the UK, Germany, France, Denmark and Poland on value-added real estate strategies across Europe, involving repositioning, rebuilding and recapitalising properties.
Before joining BlackRock, Müller was head of European Real Estate Primaries and Directs at Partners Group. He previously spent time as a principal banker at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and as a senior associate for private equity and real estate at Baker & McKenzie, practising in Zurich and London.
A recent poll of 169 of BlackRock’s largest institutional clients, representing $8 tln of assets, found investors plan to make a significant shift into alternative investments in 2015, with 50% of respondents anticipating increasing allocations to real estate this year, and just 5% expecting to decrease allocations.
'Many institutions see strong relative value in real estate compared to other assets like bonds and equities. Prime office yields are attractive compared to "risk-free" bond rates, and consequently many investors are looking to add real estate exposure this year,' commented Tom Lee, BlackRock’s head of European real estate.
