Pan-European investment manager Meyer Bergman has appointed a new managing director for the UK and Ireland.
Lily Lin joins from the UK arm of China Vanke, China's largest residential real estate developer. Working closely with Meyer Bergman's chief investment officer Josip Kardun, Lin has been appointed to drive the firm's UK and Ireland strategies, leveraging her residential experience.
Lin has close to two decades of real estate investment and strategy experience across spanning the UK and Europe. She was appointed managing director of Vanke's UK office in 2015.
Vanke, together with Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCO), is one of the investment partners behind Meyer Homes, a residential development platform created by Meyer Bergman after the investment manager acquired Tesco’s Spenill development portfolio in 2015.
Like Crossbay, Meyer Bergman’s recently launched urban logistics platform, Meyer Homes has its own corporate structure. Since its creation, Meyer Bergman has built and managed 13 sites primarily across Greater London, totalling over £560 mln in proceeds, the firm said.
Lin commented: “Through my work with Meyer Homes, I had come to know the Meyer Bergman team very well and have always admired the business’s creative approach.
'The UK and Ireland are two markets Meyer Bergman is well established in and I look forward to helping guide current projects to completion as well as adding to the firm’s residential expertise.
'More than most, Meyer Bergman understands the challenges but also crucially the opportunities that have been created by technological change, urbanisation and most recently Covid-19.'
Prior to opening Vanke’s UK operations, Lin worked at UBS in London from 2006 to 2014, following a spell on the investment team at Ascendas, Singapore’s first and largest industrial REIT.
Kardun said: 'Lily brings an abundance of experience with her that extends far beyond the UK and Europe, and is someone Meyer Bergman has worked with closely over the years.
'Lily will play a key role in shaping and driving our investment strategies for the UK and Irish markets, where we already have a number of active investments, as well as strengthening our residential expertise.
'Residential real estate has proven particularly resilient as an asset class during this pandemic and is a sector we have increased our exposure to thanks to solid fundamentals and strong defensive characteristics, with most core European cities seeing a mismatch between supply and demand.'
