US private equity firm KKR has announced the appointment of Ian Williamson as a managing director and head of Core+ Real Estate in Europe, effective immediately.
Williamson, who will be based in London, joins KKR from BlackRock where he was portfolio manager and will report to Guillaume Cassou, head of European Real Estate at KKR.
Williamson will oversee formation and lead KKR Real Estate’s pan-European Core+ focused strategy, which will focus on investing behind high quality, substantially stabilized assets with long-term growth potential.
Williamson has worked within the real estate industry in Europe for 19 years. At BlackRock, he oversaw the fundraise of €550 mln of third party capital for BlackRock Eurozone Core Property Fund and developed and drove the fund’s investment strategy. Prior to joining BlackRock in 2018, Williamson was a regional director and fund manager at LaSalle Investment Management. He had primary responsibility for the LaSalle Encore+ Fund, for which Williamson invested more than €1.36 bn of equity on behalf of the Fund across Western-Europe.
Guillaume Cassou, partner and head of Real Estate in Europe at KKR said: 'This appointment reinforces our commitment to investors to continue evolving and growing the European platform in order to build a high performing and diverse portfolio of investments.'
Williamson, managing director and head of KKR Core+ Real Estate in Europe at KKR, said: 'KKR has built a highly credible cross-sector business in European real estate, which presents a very attractive platform from which to lead Core+ focused strategies to meet the demand for high quality real estate throughout the region. I join the team at a time of real momentum for the business, and look forward to bringing my expertise to bear as the business continues to grow.'
In June 2021, KKR held the final closing of KKR Real Estate Partners Europe II, a $2.2 bn fund dedicated to value-add and opportunistic real estate investments in Western Europe. As of September 30, 2021 REPE II had already committed more than $870 mln of capital principally across logistics and residential investment opportunities.
