European real estate investment and asset manager Valesco has appointed Derek Williams as managing director.
Williams joins the London-headquartered company from Edmond de Rothschild’s UK real estate business, where he was managing director, business development.
He has more than 30 years’ global real estate experience and at Valesco he will be responsible for growing and diversifying the company”s institutional client base as it looks to significantly increase assets under management.
Shiraz Jiwa, founder and CEO of The Valesco Group, said: “Only by truly understanding the risk/return appetite of the capital allocator can we achieve our ambition of significant AUM growth combined with differentiated outperformance. Derek is a seasoned, multidisciplinary real estate and private equity professional with a rare combination of ‘through the cycle’ investor and investment experience.
“He is ideally placed to curate products through the lens of the client, ultimately ensuring total alignment with our growing and increasingly global LP base. Furthermore, having been an integral part of the global student accommodation early success story, his entrepreneurial nous makes him a perfect fit with the Valesco ethos.”
Williams added: “As institutional investors become more sophisticated and the tools to evaluate performance more accessible, so managers are increasingly being held to account. Valesco’s reputation and success to date has positioned it as a partner of choice for capital seeking to take advantage of current market dislocation, and this is a rare opportunity to build out what is already a hugely successful client servicing platform.”
