Deutsche Bank’s global head of real estate, Jonathan Pollack, has left to join Blackstone.
He joins the US private equity firm as senior managing director and chief investment officer of its lending platform, Blackstone Real Estate Debt Strategies.
In his new role Pollack will report to Mike Nash, global head of BREDS, and will be based in New York. Blackstone’s European team will continue to be led by Rob Harper.
The $9bn (£5.7bn) real estate finance business is currently investing a $3.3bn debt fund, BREDS II, which specialises in mezzanine and whole loans; a US-listed mortgage REIT, Blackstone Mortgage Trust, which focuses on senior loans in the US and Europe; as well as funds and separate mandates investing in liquid CMBS notes.
Pollack joined Deutsche Bank in 1999 and led the bank’s creation of a formidable real estate finance and CMBS platform.
Deutsche Bank’s European real estate finance team, headed by Gad Caspy, will now report to the co-heads of structured finance, Tom Cheung and Dan Pietrzak, until a new global head is appointed.
In his time at Deutsche Bank, Pollack led the London team before moving to the US to become global head.
Pollack’s team in the US and Europe was one of the few banking teams to maintain a presence in the CMBS markets during the downturn, which led to them being at the forefront of issuance when the market revived.
In the US, the bank issued more than $23bn of CMBS in 2014 and it has been the most active CMBS investment bank in Europe since the market recovered.
