Case Study for Real Estate Private Equity
Written by: Roger Threlfall

A $100bn AUM, US real estate private equity firm, headquartered in New York, had spent the last few years diversifying their client base by growing their international presence. They had hired senior fund raisers in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Australasia. This process had delivered positive results in some geographies, but they felt Europe could do more. Through our relationship with their Head of HR, they approached us to help them with this search. This hire was not to be an upgrade but an addition to the team who would be the ‘Head of European sales’.

This individual would provide management expertise, strategic input that was missing and bring a long track record of being a successful fund raiser. The head of Human Resources was a good client of ours at her previous firm, a large multi-strategy hedge fund, where we had been a long-term partner completing over 20 assignments in the last 7 years. She knew of our ability to complete challenging searches and had no hesitation contacting us for such an assignment. Through our in-depth market knowledge and historical track record, we already knew the market for senior real estate private equity fund raisers in Europe is both limited and many are quite entrenched in their current organisation. So we were aware from the outset that our client would need to think more broadly in terms of the background of where to source the candidate. Through the interview process, it was an education to the client that there would be no guarantee they would get a plug and play option to hire and through our market knowledge and credibility, we gave them comfort that hiring a very talented fund raiser, who may have less real estate fund raising experience, would still be a positive outcome.

Given our approach has always been to know the best talent in every sector, it meant we knew who we would approach in such a situation. Our ability to think slightly out of the box and know who to approach, when you cannot source from the obvious talent pool, helped us quickly introduce other very credible options. Maintaining a relationship with the best candidates in the market, means these candidates trust us when we approach them about various roles. They know we are serious and credible and introduce to them some of the very best opportunities in the market. We successfully hired them a very seasoned fund raiser, who would never have been on their radar as a potential candidate, given he had previously been the EMEA CEO of a large US asset manager. Their experience provided the strategic direction they were looking for as well as management expertise. Most importantly, they had always been in sales and had a long track record as a successful fund raiser.