CBRE expands RE secondaries advisory to Americas

CBRE Capital Advisors, the investment banking arm of CBRE Group, has expanded its real estate secondaries advisory team to the Americas, according to a statement.

The firm has appointed Philip Barker as senior managing director to lead the team, which will be based in New York. Barker previously led CBRE’s real estate derivatives team and was a senior vice-president at dealer-brokers ICAP and GFI Group. He has also worked in the precious metals groups at the Royal Bank of Canada, Merrill Lynch and Barclays Bank, according to his LinkedIn profile.

CBRE’s real estate secondaries advisory group has been operating from London and Singapore. It completed $1.4 billion of transactions last year and has closed more than $5 billion-worth of deals since it was established in 2010.

“The real estate secondaries market has significantly matured over the past few years and there is increasing acceptance of the asset class as a legitimate investment vehicle,” Barker said in the statement.

The CBRE platform offers buy-side and sell-side advisory, asset and portfolio valuation and general partner restructuring services, Barker added.

“We are excited to expand upon the existing CBRE secondaries framework, creating the pre-eminent global advisor in this rapidly expanding and important industry sector,” said James Scott, executive managing director and managing principal of CBRE Capital Advisors.