European logistics platform Crossbay has appointed a new head of asset management to oversee its portfolio.
Ben Ryan joins from Delin Property, where he was also head of asset management, responsible for a multi-national portfolio of ‘big box’ warehouses in Spain, the Netherlands and UK.
Prior to Delin Property, Ryan held senior asset management roles at both Praxis Real Estate and Topland Group, where he was responsible for a £2 bn (€2.2 bn) of properties, including commercial, industrial, leisure, hospitality and retail uses. He was also previously director in ING’s real estate investment management division.
Crossbay was launched in May 2020 by pan-European investment manager Mark, previously Meyer Bergman. The platform is led by Marco Riva, who joined from Blackstone portfolio company Logicor, which focuses on ‘big box’ warehouses.
‘Since the pandemic, last mile logistics has become an increasingly competitive space, with a growing number of investors looking to enter a sector where it is difficult to amass scale thanks to the often fragmented and localised ownership of assets,’ said Ben Ryan, head of asset management at Crossbay. ‘Crossbay is at least two years ahead of the competition in assembling a genuinely pan-European portfolio, which is what attracted me to the platform, and I look forward to working with the wider team to help secure its market-leading position.’
Crossbay focuses specifically on single-user distribution centres in locations no more than a 90-minute journey to the centre of the nearest city. The recently announced a €400 mln debt facility with Citi to help fund its growth and expansion. This follows a successful capital-raise last year, in which Crossbay secured €550 mln in equity commitments from investors including the Townsend Group, CBRE GI, Credit Suisse, Nuveen and QInvest.
