Coates leaves RBS to join CBRE

RBS head of real estate finance Paul Coates has left his position to join CBRE. He has been hired as executive director and head of debt and structured finance for the EMEA region. Coates has been managing director at RBS and head of real estate finance since 2008. He was responsible for the strategy and leadership of the real estate franchises across the bank, and was a member of the commercial and private banking executive committee. Prior to this, Coates held other positions within RBS, including managing director in the European real estate securitisation team and managing director in the real estate finance group. In his new role, Coates will report to Richard Dakin, managing director of CBRE Capital Advisors. He will be looking to expand the team across the region and grow its pipeline of debt advisory mandates. Between January 2016 and June 2017, new hires have joined CBRE to lead the teams at a local level across the EMEA region, including Martina Muehlhofer in Italy, Abdallah Ould Brahim in France and Igor Borrego in Portugal, supplementing the existing activities in the Netherlands, Spain, Germany and central and eastern Europe. Richard Dakin, managing director, CBRE Capital Advisors, said: “We always strive to give our clients a significant competitive advantage by delivering the best teams, expertise and market intelligence available from across our unrivalled global platform. “Paul is highly regarded throughout the industry and has the experience to help us deliver the strategic growth that is required for us to continue to deliver exceptional outcomes for clients. “With our deep real estate knowledge of the global markets, combined with our disciplined financial expertise, CBRE is better positioned than anyone to offer the full breadth of real asset and finance optionality.” Coates added: “I am looking forward to working with and developing the team to build on the existing strong track record of success and seizing the growing number of advisory opportunities presenting themselves in the market currently.” An RBS spokesperson said: “We can confirm that Paul is leaving his role as head of real estate finance at RBS. “Over the past 10 years, he has played an important part in establishing our real estate finance business as the leading franchise in the sector. “We have an excellent team in place who are well positioned to build on this success and continue to support our customers.” To send feedback, e-mail nick.johnstone@egi.co.uk or tweet @n_johnstone or @estatesgazette