JPMorgan’s innovative approach to real estate has put it at the top of the Liquid Real Estate poll’s equity category. Laurence Neville finds out why the firm has become a force to be reckoned with.

John Perkins will join Bank of America’s real estate investment banking group this month as a managing director with senior client coverage responsibility. Perkins will be based in New York and will report to Ron Sturzenegger, global head of the real estate investment banking group. Perkins joins BofA from JPMorgan Securities, where he has worked for the past 12 years on a broad spectrum of M&A, equity and debt capital-raising transactions for clients across the real estate, lodging and gaming industries.

The annual selection of the winners of the Real estate awards is based on surveys and assessments of real estate firms’ performance and achievements over the past 12 months. The awards cover real estate practitioners in more than 50 countries.

Hypo Real Estate’s €5.7 billion purchase of Depfa Bank, announced on July 23, has not been an instant hit. The deal unites one of Europe’s biggest commercial real estate financiers with the continent’s second-biggest public-sector lender. The managements of the two banks were keen to talk up the complementary nature of the new entity’s businesses but analysts have offered lukewarm assessments at best.

Jones Lang LaSalle is expanding with the global real estate markets. CEO Colin Dyer speaks to Rachel Wolcott about the importance of maintaining a local feel in a global business and why sustainability makes sense.

BNP Paribas has priced the first property derivatives trade based on a basket of indices. To date, property derivative trades have been based on single indices but the Paribas trade signals a new direction for the market, and more basket trades are expected to appear.

As volatility spreads across the debt markets, the CMBS market is taking stock. Property derivatives are likely to increase volatility in the market and contribute to spread widening just as refinancing activity – a significant driver of CMBS volumes – slows. But as competition between commercial lenders and conduit lenders expands across Europe, the market is looking to new jurisdictions to maintain growth.

JPMorgan has hired Bill Schwab as a managing director and head of the structuring team in its real estate structured finance business. He joins JPMorgan from Deutsche Bank, where he was a founding member of the real estate finance team and head of the European real estate capital structure and underwriting. Before that, Schwab was real estate chief lending officer at Goldman Sachs. Based in London, Schwab reports to Jon Rickert, head of real estate structured finance for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

HSH Nordbank has appointed Leopold Reymaier to the key account management team in Hamburg as senior vice-president. He will be responsible for originating loans as well as a range of services related to real estate.

René Beckert is to manage real estate structured finance Germany, South, at Aareal Bank’s Munich office as the division’s director. He will be responsible for operating real estate business in southern Germany.

Hammerson, a £7 billion ($14.2 billion) UK-based property company, has sold 50% of its single largest holding as part of its capital recycling strategy. In July, GIC Real Estate, an arm of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, paid Hammerson £300 million for a stake in Westquay, a retail property in Southampton.

Financing costs in Spain’s real estate sector are expected to soar following debt market investors’ rejection of the terms of a €7 billion credit line to the country’s fourth-biggest construction company. Fears that the local housing market might be set for a downturn were blamed for the deal’s failure.

Siegfried Cofalka has been relieved of his responsibility as managing director of Oppenheim Immobilien-Kapitalanlagegesellschaft (OIK), the fund arm of listed German real estate firm IVG Immobilien, according a statement from the firm. His duties will be assumed by Peter Le Loux, chief executive of OIK. No reason was given for Cofalka’s departure.

Aegon Asset Management has hired three property fund managers away from Morley Fund Management in a move to enhance its pre-existing property offering. Aegon’s new appointments include Geraldine Davies, who managed the £4.2 billion Norwich Property Trust at Morley. The other managers who left with Davies were Philip Clark, head of the Morley specialist funds team, and David Wise, manager of the Norwich Property Investment fund. The trio joined Aegon in June as directors in the property group.

How Deutsche grew up fast in real estate

Morley Fund Management is building a dedicated property research team and has hired David Skinner to head it. Skinner has joined from Pramerica, where he was director of research, Europe. At Morley, he takes on the newly created position of head of property research, reporting to Nick Mansley, director of property strategy and indirect investment. At Morley, Skinner will lead the asset manager’s property research capability, taking a key role in business development and investment decision-making across Morley’s property funds. He will also contribute to the strategy and overall development of Morley’s property business.

Henderson Global Investors has appointed Jérôme Sebaux as head of property finance in France. Based in Henderson’s Paris office, Sebaux will be responsible for the financial management of funds as well as the provision of related services to the fund and asset managers in Paris. Before joining Henderson, Sebaux was a fund controller at ING Real Estate Investment Management France. Before that, he was international financial controller at JC Decaux and an analyst at Sanofi-Synthélabo in Berlin.

"There is a lot of hidden value if you wait for the recovery in the German market"

Bank of America has hired Paul Ogden to the newly created role of head of market development for property derivatives. London-based Ogden reports to Markus Wolfensberger, managing director in structured securities. He joins from CB Richard Ellis /GFI Group, where he headed property derivatives development.

International property group Goodman was able to price a £800 million ($1.61 billion) commercial mortgage-backed securitization in July before the debt markets took a turn for the worse. The deal, lead managed by Calyon and Royal Bank of Scotland, was part of a £1.2 billion refinancing of Goodman’s Arlington Business Parks Partnership (ABPP) fund. RBS and Eurohypo acted as arrangers. "We were very pleased to get this deal away in a market that is deteriorating around us," says Jeff Pulsford, Goodman’s European CEO. "It gives the fund stability and confidence in cashflow."

London-based Grosvenor Group transacted its first Japanese property derivatives trade in July. The trade, a two-year total-return swap on the IPD Index for Japan, is the next step in Grosvenor’s foray into the property derivatives market.

Property derivatives continue to grow in popularity, with new funds launching and increasing numbers of banks gaining licences to trade.

The annual selection of the winners of the Real estate awards is based on polling on real estate firms’ performance and achievements over the past 12 months. The awards cover real estate practitioners in nearly 50 countries.

Lehman Brothers Asset Management has hired two portfolio managers from Rotterdam-based Robeco as part of the global expansion of its real estate business.

Asian investors have been waiting some time for an Indian real estate investment trust. One has finally arrived but, perhaps inevitably, it’s nowhere near India.

A wave of new property fund launches across Asia indicates that the region’s markets are set for rapid growth.

In late May, Russia’s state-owned Agency for Housing Mortgage Lending opened the local mortgage-backed securities market with a deal that aims to lay the foundations for domestic issuance. AHML, the government agency established in the mid-1990s to refinance mortgages, has been a driving force in the development of Russia’s MBS law. This first public deal is seen as a test of this law, which should drive the development of Russia’s burgeoning mortgage market.

It was just a matter of time before the true extent of the damage caused by sub-prime mortgage losses was uncovered. When, in February, the significant increase in sub-prime delinquencies became known, credit market watchers could only speculate about the ultimate impact.

HSBC Investments’ multi-manager team has been expanded to incorporate a dedicated team of property fund selection experts.

Australia’s Macquarie Bank is getting big in real estate. Stephen Girdis, its global head, speaks to Chris Wright about the bank’s worldwide plans.