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.

Invesco Real Estate has expanded in the Far East with the opening of two offices in Shanghai and Tokyo and the appointment of four local real estate professionals.

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.

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.

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.

From humble beginnings a decade ago, Deutsche Bank’s commercial real estate business has grown into a powerhouse. Led by Jon Vaccaro, the group is making headlines globally with high-profile deals – from the Blackstone Group’s acquisition of Hilton to the development of Macao Studio City. Rachel Wolcott reports.

UBS Global Asset Management has hired Roddy Sloan as global head of real estate funds of funds and securities within its global real estate business. Based in London, he will lead a newly created global real estate funds of funds initiative and supervise the existing global real estate securities business, which will continue to be co-headed by Bruce Ebnother and Laurent Wunderli.

Michael Pralle abruptly departed GE Real Estate at the end June, having overseen huge growth in direct equity investing around the world at the unit, which, in the 1990s, had concentrated simply on lending to real estate companies. Pralle, who joined GE Capital in 1989 and ran the business in Asia, changed all that in his time as CEO of the real estate unit. Through a period of surging gains for the asset class, he grew its assets and earnings at a remarkable clip. As Liquid Real Estate pointed out in its profile of GE Real Estate in our last issue, that growth surge had come to present the company with a tricky problem. Real estate assets on the GE’s balance sheet grew from $21 billion in 2000 to $59 billion by the time Pralle left. The real estate unit closed $29 billion of deals in 2006 alone. But GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt grew uneasy. He did not want his company, now deriving 10% of its earnings from real estate, to be classed as or trade on the multiples of a real estate company. Nudging up against these corporate balance sheet limits, GE Real Estate began distributing assets it had originated to off-balance-sheet and third-party vehicles. Pralle pointed out that this entailed forgoing some expected earnings.

Sun Hung Kai Properties’ iconic buildings dominate the Hong Kong skyline. Michael Wong, executive director, tells Chris Wright about the company’s plans to continue to shape Asia’s largest cities.

UBS made a serious statement of intent in June when it unveiled Donald Belanger as managing director and head of EMEA real estate capital markets. Belanger joins after two years spent at Credit Suisse, where he held a similar European role, responsible for origination, structuring and distribution of all real estate debt in Europe.

The hospitals backing GHG Healthcare’s Theatre (Hospitals) transaction, launched last month, should be familiar to the ABS market by now. This is the third time they have been securitized.

Jonathan Short, previously chief executive for Europe, global merchant banking, at Pramerica Real Estate Investors, has left to become chief executive of Internos Investors. Combined with this role he still sits on the board of two quoted UK Reits, Big Yellow and Great Portland Estates.

An opening of the market to more market makers should boost derivatives use.

The European Commission has decided to set up an expert group to advise it on open-ended real estate funds. The group will advise the EC on how to improve the European market for these funds and on whether EU-level action in this area would deliver benefits for industry and investors, the EC said in a statement.

Credit Suisse is launching a $2.5 billion fund for investment in property. It joins an already extensive list of private equity funds raising cash for the sector. These include Morgan Stanley’s $8 billion fund and private equity fund Blackstone Group’s $10 billion fund. The bank started to market the fund at the end of April and intends to use it for investment globally as it attempts to tap growing investor appetite for geographical diversification in property investment.

Dubai Islamic Bank has opened a new real estate office in Sharjah, one of the northern emirates in the UAE, on February 28. The office aims to provide commercial real estate finance services and products such as murabaha (property purchase finance), istisnaa (construction finance) and musharaka (cash against property finance). Sharjah is the bank’s second office to open since the end of last year following the real estate finance department’s first branch inauguration at the Dubai Land Department.

The UK Reits industry is striving to get out of first gear, five months after hearing the starter’s gun.

Aberdeen Property Investors has recruited a seven-strong property investment management team from Credit Suisse Asset Management, headed by the new head of property asset management in the UK, Glenn Newson. The new hires, announced at the beginning of March, coincide with plans to launch Aberdeen’s first UK property fund.

It is one of the giant global industries, right up there with food and healthcare; it provides the collateral for a high proportion of loans in the world banking system and for growing volumes of securities, but it remains obstinately driven by local factors of supply and demand.

by John Davy, senior ABS analyst, Fidelity International.

Real estate convertibles are the hot ticket

James Wilkinson, fund manager, Thames River.

Joe Valente, head of research, DTZ.

Investors are hungry for property exposure and for equity-linked paper. The result? Real estate convertibles are in huge demand. Europe and Asia are on a high while a new market has also sprung up from the Middle East. Laurence Neville reports.

Low correlations to financial assets and high liquidity continue to attract institutional funds and private wealth into real estate.

German CMBS enjoys boom time

Heraclis Economides, managing director, corporate finance, Bridgewell Group.

Real estate convertibles are the hot ticket

Alex Moss, AME Capital.

Middle East thrives on new rules of the game