The Carlyle Group Expands European Real Estate Team

PARIS - The Carlyle Group, the world's largest private equity firm, announced today that it has recruited three more real estate investment professionals to bolster its real estate investment activities in Europe.

Three senior professionals have joined the firm's Paris office bringing the European Real Estate team's total number to 12. “Now that we have resources in place we are set to get off to a running start on real estate investments throughout Europe,” said Eric Sasson, managing director of Carlyle's European Real Estate Team. “Timing is very important for us and we want to capitalise on the fact that real estate prices in France, Germany and Italy are at an attractive stage in the buying cycle.”

The team structure encompasses professionals experienced in acquisition execution as well as asset management - a skill that Carlyle believes is necessary in order to create maximum value within the current market environment. Carlyle's commitment to improving the assets it acquires will allow it to tap into two key sources of deal flow. Firstly, new investment opportunities are increasing as many corporates and governments seek to divest assets in order to raise cash. Secondly, the growing size and number of pension funds are fuelling greater demand for long-term stable real estate assets.

Catherine Simoni joins from SARI Development as Associate Director overseeing the asset management of all investments made in France. While at SARI Development, the development arm of Nexity, Catherine leased and sold several major French office developments. She has 12 years of Real Estate experience as a developer and principal investor with Copra (a French developer) and Finestate-Robert (JE Robert). Catherine holds a degree from the Ecole Superieure Informatique de Nice.

Peter Stoll joins from Morgan Stanley as Associate Director for acquisitions in the fund's secondary target markets. He will monitor and update Carlyle's strategic view of the European Real Estate market both in terms of new geographies and real estate classes. In the process of doing so, he will also exploit any attractive opportunities that arise and also assist other team members on executing transactions within the primary target markets. In his previous role, Peter was involved in a wide range of acquisitions in countries including: Italy, France, the UK, Switzerland, Sweden and Spain. Peter has seven years of Real Estate experience and holds a degree from Dartmouth College.

Marc Demumieux joins from La Salle Investment Management as Associate Director for acquisitions in France. While at LaSalle, Marc managed the acquisition of office buildings, commercial centres, hotels and warehouses in both Italy and France, most notably the Porto Allegro Warner Village Multiplex (12 screens, 2500 seats) and Shopping Centre in Pescara (Italy) and a Club Med European portfolio of Leisure Centres. Marc has ten years of Real Estate and Banking experience, and holds a DESS of Economics, Banking and Financial Management from the Paris-Pantheon Assas University.