Gazit Globe-owned Atrium looks to its CFO for new leadership

He will succeed Liad Barzilai, who served as Atrium’s CEO for the past five years. Barzilai, who joined the G City Group 15 years ago, progressed through various management positions to head Atrium.

Lee has served as Atrium's CFO for the past seven years and led a number of strategic moves, including raising €650 mln last year under the group’s New Green Notes financing program. As part of his duties, he was responsible for several corporate departments, including human resources, taxation, valuations, legal and data technology.

He has also been a full partner in building the group’s business strategy and guiding its entry into the field of residential rentals, and was also responsible for the group’s streamlining process, closing its offices in Jersey and Amsterdam and relocating them to Cyprus.

A chartered accountant with 30 years of international financial experience, prior to joining Atrium, he spent six years in senior roles in CEE-based private companies. In addition, he previously held various international senior and board-level financial roles with Japan Tobacco International and Unilever plc and its group subsidiaries from 1990-2009. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Law and Italian from the University of Wales, Cardiff.

The appointment comes six months after Atrium shareholders backed a merger with Gazit.

The outgoing CEO Barzilai was warmly congratulated by the group.

He led a wide-ranging strategic move that included changing the organizational structure and shutting down operations in several Eastern European countries. He also is credited with strengthening the group’s focus on urban properties in major cities by selling assets that were not part of its core business and acquiring strategic assets.

Under his management, the group improved its capital and debt structure by raising more than €1 bn, upgraded its credit rating, invested about €150 mln in redeveloping several commercial centres and entered the field of residential rentals in Poland, where it is now a significant player.

Atrium currently owns about 650 apartments in Poland that are expected to begin yielding returns by the end of the year. In addition, it has started construction of 200 units that are part of a planned 800-unit project being built on land it acquired 10 years ago.

Chaim Katzman, CEO and founder of G City (Gazit-Globe), welcomed Lee’s appointment and said: ‘Ryan is entering this position during an important and meaningful period. He possesses wide experience along with management and financial expertise, and I have no doubt that he will contribute greatly to the group in his new role.’

‘I thank Liad for his superb work and his acceleration of the group’s development, including its speedy entry into the construction of rental housing that has turned Atrium into a leading player in Poland. I’m proud of our ability to enable talented people like Liad to grow over the course of 15 years in a series of positions – from analyst to CEO.’

Atrium is an owner, operator and redeveloper of shopping centres and residential for rent apartments in Central Europe. It specializes in locally dominant food, fashion and entertainment shopping centres. Atrium owns 26 properties with a total gross leasable area of over 809,000 m2 and with a total market value of approximately €2.5 bn.

The assets are located in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Russia, and with the exception of one, are all managed by Atrium’s internal team of retail real estate professionals. In February 2020 Atrium announced a strategy to diversify its portfolio by investing in and managing residential for rent real estate, with a primary focus on Warsaw.