Deutsche Bank has confirmed the departure of global head of real estate Jonathan Pollack, who left the bank on Friday to join Blackstone, ending months of speculation.
Pollack, joined the bank in 1999 and created a formidable real estate finance and CMBS platform. Rumours of his departure spread soon after Deutsche Bank announced the sale of its US special situations business to TPG earlier this year.
He joins the US private equity firm as a senior managing director, as the chief investment officer of its lending platform, Blackstone Real Estate Debt Strategies (BREDS).
Pollack will report to Mike Nash, global head of BREDS, based in New York.
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.
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 has been the most active CMBS investment bank since the market recovered.
