INTERVIEW: Italian chief for Cushman & Wakefield

Carlo Barel di Sant’Albano, the new CEO for Cushman & Wakefield’s EMEA operations, is a rare bird in the global real estate advisory sector. While most of his peers have an Anglo-Saxon background, Sant’Albano is possibly one of the most truly international figures in the top echelon.

The Italian-born marchese - a nobleman of hereditary rank - was educated in Colombia, Brazil and Scotland before embarking on a career that spans the US, Latin America and the UK. His working experience also extends to Asia and the Pacific and he speaks five languages fluently. ‘I have been very fortunate,’ he says more than once during an interview at Cushman & Wakefield’s London office at Portman Square.

Behind the modesty and old world charm is a sharp businessman whose professional career is steeped in finance following positions in fixed-income trading, investment banking and M&A operations. From 2006 to 2011, he was head of Exor and its predecessor IFIL, the listed investment vehicle of the Italian Agnelli family, owners of car maker Fiat. Since March 2011, Sant’Albano has acted as global chairman of Cushman & Wakefield, in which the Agnelli family has a 70% stake through their Exor holding. On 1 July this year, he also took the helm as chief executive officer for EMEA, replacing Paul Bacon who is leaving the company in early 2013 to set up his own investment company.

Sant’Albano’s debut in the international real estate arena harks back to the heady days of 2007 when he engineered Exor’s purchase of a 70% stake in Cushman & Wakefield. Since then, Exor has gone on to acquire a 36% stake in Almacantar, the London-based investment and development company set up in 2010 by former Land Securities chief Mike Hussey. The Turin-born CEO readily concedes he has gone through an ‘evolution of experiences’ in the real estate sector and that the ‘easy money’ of the boom years now belongs well and truly in the past. But his appetite to expand Cushman & Wakefield and boost its profitability remain undiminished. ‘I am fascinated by real estate, it’s a fantastic asset class. In times of volatile markets, people want something tangible like gold and bricks. Real estate fits that need.’ At the same time, the advisory market is becoming increasingly competitive, he admits. ‘Our clients are driving that change and challenging us to provide creative real estate solutions.

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