Cornerstone hires head of fund management from AXA RE

Real estate investment manager Cornerstone has appointed Jorge Duarte as director of fund management for Europe.

He joins from AXA Real Estate where he served for five years as a pan-European fund manager for a number of discretionary investment ventures. Duarte was primarily responsible for a fund launched in 2006 which targeted value-add returns, managing not only the execution of the strategy but also the fund-raising side.

In total, Duarte managed six funds at AXA Real Estate, all of which outperformed their initial fund objectives, and are now either fully divested or in their final stages.

At Cornerstone, Duarte will be responsible for managing the firm’s pan-European funds, looking after both fund-raising and the deployment of capital. He will report to Cornerstone’s European CIO, Nick Pink.

Prior to AXA Real Estate, Duarte worked for three years as country manager for Southern Europe at Howard Holdings, originating and executing over €500 mln of investments across Italy, Spain and Portugal.

Cornerstone is one of the largest global real estate investment managers with over $47 bn (€41 bn) of assets under management.