HarbourVest hires former OPTrust exec to lead real assets

HarbourVest Partners has hired Kevin Warn-Schindel as a managing director for its real assets investment programme, according to a statement.

Warn-Schindel will lead the firm’s real assets team, which will include primary and secondaries investments across energy, infrastructure, natural resources and real estate.

“We continue to see strong interest in real assets and believe this is a natural extension of the HarbourVest platform across the private markets.”

Warn-Schindel previously worked in the private markets investment unit of OPTrust, a Toronto-based defined benefit pension plan. He has also worked as an investment executive at Macquarie Bank and RBC Capital Markets.

His appointment comes months after HarbourVest hired Michael Dean as a principal on the secondaries investment team to focus on real assets.  Dean joined the firm in July from Boston consultancy and advisory firm Meketa Investment Group.

HarbourVest’s real assets investment programme will focus on a variety of sectors, but the market estimates real estate represents the largest share of real assets secondaries in terms of volume. According to Setter, real estate secondaries accounted for about 13.7 percent of total secondaries volume in 2014. Still, real assets secondaries are nascent, according to Credit Suisse.