Search results for

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 UK hotel-based Reit market failed to launch as the widely anticipated initial public offering from Vector fell flat in June. The planned £2 billion deal was scheduled to be the UK’s first hotel-based Reit. This failure has not discouraged market players and analysts, who are still confident that the market will develop with time.

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.

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.

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.

Even as financial markets almost beg Bernanke to bail them out with a cut in rates, he continues to stress inflationary fears, which seem quite justified as China’s prices rise.

Tim Owens thinks volatilities remain below long-term means and sees the potential to profit from entering long volatility trades.

Options systems vendor SuperDerivatives has appointed Sam Somech to head up its global research and development activities.

Hilda Harris Piell, Julie Holzrichter

Saxo Bank has named Soeren Mose as its executive director for private wealth management.