Kennedy Wilson, Valad Europe appoint new finance chiefs

Kennedy Wilson Europe has announced the appointment of Fraser Kennedy as head of finance, to lead the company’s 19 strong finance team.

Kennedy is a Chartered Accountant and has close to 20 years’ experience in real estate and financial services sectors. He joins from Valad Europe, a European real estate investment manager, where he has spent the past eight years, the last five of which as CFO for Europe.

Prior to this Kennedy worked at Legal & General Investment Management and Haysmacintyre.

Since its IPO in February 2014, KWE’s team has grown to around 80 people located in London, Dublin, Madrid and Jersey to support its £2 bn property portfolio.

Meanwhile, investment manager Valad Europe has replaced Kennedy with Claire Treacy, who was promoted to the post of Chief Financial Officer.

In this role, she will be responsible for Valad Europe's corporate finance functions, debt origination and ongoing management of the company's finance operations across Europe.

Prior to her promotion, Treacy was head of tax and risk at Valad for 10 years. During this time she was closely involved in the launches of the VEDF, V+ Germany, V+ Nordic, V+ Nordic 2 and Parc d'Activités funds, both during their establishment and in the acquisition phases.

Before joining Valad Europe, she was a senior tax manager in KPMG's real estate group, specialising in European fund structuring.