Dilip Awtani, a veteran of European real estate investing, has set up a boutique company.
The new firm, TACT Capital, focuses on repurposing assets that are surplus to demand, especially due to the pandemic. Awtani said it was involved in repositioning and redeveloping commercial real estate ‘in line with local demand’ and is an investment advisor on strategic asset management.
Awtani has held numerous positions in a career spanning 25 years, including three-and-a-half years at Colony Capital where he led the US company’s distressed business in Germany from start-up to realisation.
During his stint at Tom Barrack’s company, he led €900 mln of nominal value acquisitions for €150 mln of equity, while managing two offices with nine staff in Germany and the UK.
One such deal arrived in 2011 when investment vehicles managed by Colony acquired a portfolio of real estate collateralised non-performing loans (NPL) from four German banks, including Eurohypo, Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen (Helaba), Berlin Hyp and Archon Capital Bank. These loans had a face value of €370 mln and were used to develop properties primarily in Berlin and Frankfurt in the mid to late 1990s. All loans in the portfolio were held by one borrower.
It was the first time syndicated loans had been sold together as a package by a banking consortium as an NPL transaction in Germany, and possibly in Europe.
Most recently, Awtani has been working as global CEO of Jahama, which has a $3 bn commercial real estate portfolio, and is the UK’s fifth biggest private landlord.
He left that role in January having been with Jahama since 2018.
Other positions he has held include head of GE Capital distressed investments from 2004 to 2009. He joined Colony as head of Europe for distressed and financial services in 2009 and left in 2012 to join Houlihan Lokey.
