Hermes Real Estate has lined up an M&G Investments associate director to take the lead on its fledgling debt platform.
The fund manager has appointed Vincent Nobel from its rival investment manager as head of real estate debt to replace Marcus Palmer, who left in September after a year in the role.
Nobel has been working on pan-European real estate financing in the fixed-income group at M&G for the past three years. He reported to director Paul Dittmann, who leads the firm’s senior debt lending team. Prior to his time at M&G, Nobel was a director in the structured property finance team at -Barclays Corporate.
Nobel will be responsible for Hermes Real Estate Senior Debt Fund, which launched in October last year with a £400m commitment from parent company, the BT Pension Scheme.
The vehicle, which was to partner with other lenders to provide senior loans of £30m-£100m, has yet to originate a loan.
Hermes is continuing to raise third-party capital for the platform, which has capacity to grow to £2bn.
