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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.

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.

Richard Olsen and Michael Stumm point to the reasons for the remarkably rapid rise of the retail foreign exchange market.

Dresdner Kleinwort has appointed Scott Bennett as director and chief dealer, spot FX in its New York branch. Benett was previously a senior yen trader at Standard Chartered in New York. He has also traded at Credit Suisse and JP Morgan. He will report locally to Joe Craven, head of FX and local markets North America and globally to Sandro De Toffol, global head of Spot FX.

A major step to world rebalancing has taken place with credit markets reflecting a more appropriate risk/reward relationship. We would see Bernanke accepting a slower US growth as desirable.

How companies can make sure they deal effectively with shareholder activists.