Landmark top executive departs – exclusive

Ian Charles, a partner and secondaries market veteran, is leaving the private equity and real estate secondaries firm to launch his own venture.

Landmark Partners, the fourth-biggest secondaries firm according to the SI 30 fundraising ranking, has lost a partner and 13-year veteran of the firm.

Ian Charles
Charles: launching a new venture

Ian Charles will leave the real estate and private equity secondaries specialist to pursue a new investment opportunity, according to two sources familiar with the matter. He is one of 16 partners at the firm.

“While we will miss Ian, as an organisation we have always strategically planned and hired to ensure depth across the entire firm and to accommodate growth and departures,” chairman Francisco Borges and president Timothy Haviland wrote in an  email dated 5 September announcing Charles’s departure, seen by Secondaries Investor.

Charles’s next venture does not conflict with any of Landmark’s secondaries activities, the letter notes.

Landmark’s private equity team is led by six partners and two managing directors, according to the letter.

“We have worked closely and collaboratively on this and we will have a continued relationship going forward,” Borges told Secondaries Investor. “We are excited for him and we wish him well.”

The departures does not trigger any keyman clauses, Borges said.

Charles is a secondaries market veteran who joined the firm in 2006. He was a member of its private equity and real assets investment committees, according to Landmark’s website. Charles was responsible for sourcing private equity and real assets deals, developing structural solutions for institutional investors and negotiating private equity investments.

Prior to Landmark, he co-founded advisory firm Cogent Partners – which was acquired by Greenhill in 2015 – where he was responsible for origination, client relationships and research.

Simsbury, Connecticut-based Landmark raised $17.9 billion between 1 January 2014 and 30 June 2019, according to the latest SI 30 published on Tuesday. The firm is investing its $7 billion Landmark Equity Partners XVI, which closed in September last year, according to Secondaries Investor data.