Afleveringen
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Stafford Lancaster has been at Delancey for over 25 years, working alongside Sir John and Jamie Ritblat. Today he runs the firm behind some of the UK's most recognisable real estate projects - Earls Court, East Village, Elephant and Castle - and he's just launched a new lending platform in Albion Arc.
The thread that runs through the whole conversation is a single financing principle that Delancey has stuck to from day one: never get caught out. Before the GFC, they had no loan-to-value covenants in any of their debt. When values crashed and banks started calling in loans across the industry, Delancey had nothing to trigger. They rode the whole thing out and came through with a 15% gross IRR.
That same discipline shows up in how they won the Olympic Village - a David and Goliath bid against Hutchison Whampoa and the Wellcome Trust - and how they pioneered build-to-rent in the UK, interviewing 3,000 renters and flooding the market with 1,400 homes when the rest of the industry was still drip-feeding stock.
It's a flat structure, everyone's self-starting, and Sir John is still in the office at 90. Stafford talks openly about how that culture is what lets 65 people compete with firms ten times the size, and why he'd rather keep it that way than scale up.
What's the one principle you'd never break in your own business? Let us know in the comments.
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Rob Abraham joined Supermarket Income REIT when it owned seven stores. Today it owns 128 and he's the CEO of a FTSE 250 company at 35.
Getting there involved a farming deal that collapsed weeks after he started, a pandemic that supercharged the business, a mini budget that stopped it dead, and a share price that hit 65p before the board decided to internalise the management and break away from Atrato in six weeks.
Rob is clear on what drives value in grocery real estate. The best sites were taken during the space race of the 1990s and 2000s. You can't get 10 acres in a residential urban location anymore. And Tesco spending Β£50 million to buy a single store back onto its balance sheet tells you everything about how critical these properties are to the operators.
He's also pretty candid about the moments where it could have gone wrong. The internalisation was make or break. The Blue Owl JV, now at Β£840 million, came with real pressure. And none of it was planned.
What would your strategy be for building a specialist REIT from scratch? Let us know in the comments.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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This week I sat down with Kirsty Willman, CFO & COO of Rebalance Earth to ask Why Should Real Estate Investors Care About Nature?
Kirsty spent 22 years in private markets finance, most recently as COO of Real Estate at Federated Hermes. She walked away from that to back a Β£100 billion market that nobody has properly built yet.
Her view is straightforward. Flood risk is becoming impossible to insure away. Coastal erosion is outpacing the defences built to stop it. Urban temperatures are rising fast enough to change where people actually want to be. Most real estate portfolios have not started pricing any of this.
We got into how Rebalance Earth finances nature restoration projects, how the returns work through service contracts, carbon credits and biodiversity net gain, and what 4 million oysters off the coast of Norfolk have to do with coastal property and offshore wind.
This is not a vanilla ESG conversation; it is a conversation about portfolio risk and why you really should care about nature before it is to late.
Drop your thoughts in the comments.
The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Rockbourne, recruiting leadership talent for real estate funds, owners, investors, and developers.
Key Topics
β Why Nature Loss Is Now a Real Estate Balance Sheet Risk Not an ESG Talking Point
β How Rebalance Earth Underwrites Nature Restoration Like Any Other Private Markets Asset
β Flood Risk, Coastal Erosion and Urban Heat. The Risks Most Portfolios Have Not Priced
β Why Kirsty Left a Senior COO Role to Back a Β£100 Billion Market Nobody Has Built Yet
β The Revenue Model Behind Nature Based Investing and Why It Works for Institutional Capital
The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Rockbourne, recruiting leadership talent for real estate funds, owners, investors, and developers.
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This week, I sat down with Lord Walker, Executive Chair of Iceland Food Group, Founder and Chairman of Bywater, and the Prime Minister's Cost of Living Champion.
Richard started his property career on the JLL graduate scheme in the West End before moving to Warsaw to build a value-add business across Eastern Europe. After returning to the UK, Bywater spent several years searching for its niche before the former Costa Roastery site in Lambeth became Paradise - one of the UK's largest CLT mass timber office buildings. That project helped bring in Sumitomo Forestry, a 400-year-old Japanese partner, and gave Bywater the platform to scale into timber-led workspaces and living assets.
In this conversation, Richard talks about patient capital, building through the GFC, why "long term greedy" shapes both Bywater and Iceland, how purpose and profit can sit together, and what his new role in the House of Lords means for his work around the cost of living.
We also discuss Iceland's growth into a Β£4.5bn family-owned retailer, his year working on the shop floor, climbing Everest in 2023, and why resilience has been central to every stage of his career.
βΈ»
Key Topics Covered in This Episode
β From The West End To Warsaw Lessons from the JLL grad scheme and building in Eastern Europe through the GFC.
β Paradise, Vauxhall & The Mass Timber Thesis How the CLT office in Vauxhall became the deal that defined Bywater.
β Sumitomo And The Power Of Patient Capital Why a 400-year-old Japanese partner is rewriting how Bywater thinks about cycles and product.
β Scaling Beyond Offices Β£1 billion GDV by year end, a new pension-fund vehicle, and the move into living.
β Long Term Greedy Why purpose-led businesses last longer and why Gen Z is voting with their feet.
[This episode was recorded on 16th April 2026]
If you have thoughts or questions about this episode, drop them in the comments. I'd love to hear your take.
The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Rockbourne, recruiting leadership talent for real estate funds, owners, investors, and developers.
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This week, I sat down with James Halstead, Managing Director and BlackRock's Chief Investment Officer for European Value Add Real Estate, for a conversation that opens with one of the most direct and challenging questions the show has ever asked. Is real estate facing an existential crisis?
James does not flinch. He gives a forensically honest answer about where real estate equity sits today relative to private credit and infrastructure, why the sector has underperformed on a risk adjusted basis over the last decade, and what that means for how smart managers need to construct portfolios going forward. It is the kind of candour that is rare from someone at his level.
His own career is a fascinating study in patience, reinvention and strategic opportunism. Starting as a lawyer at BLP, a chance six month secondment to MGP during the financial crisis became the fork in the road that changed everything. What followed was a decade of deliberate stepping stones, going sideways and sometimes backwards, learning debt, development, asset management and acquisitions from the coalface up, until the breadth of that foundation became the very thing that set him apart.
We explore how Brexit, far from derailing his career, became the catalyst for building businesses in Ireland and Spain and ultimately broadening the BlackRock European platform in ways that would not have happened otherwise. James is candid about the role of serendipity versus strategy in how careers actually develop, and why the difference matters less than people think.
The conversation also tackles the talent gap that keeps him up at night. What happens to ambitious professionals in their early thirties when their managers stop investing in their development, and why the industry is quietly producing a generation of people who have plateaued without knowing it.
And of course, I asked James the big question:
Who are the People, what Property, and which Place would you invest in if you had Β£500 million to deploy?
Drop your thoughts in the comments. We would love to hear your take.
Key Topics
β Is Real Estate Facing an Existential Crisis in Private Markets?
β Why Real Estate Equity Has Underperformed and What Needs to Change
β From Lawyer to BlackRock CIO. The Stepping Stone Career Nobody Planned
β How Brexit Became the Catalyst for Building Across Europe
β The Talent Development Gap That Is Quietly Damaging the Industry
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This week, I sat down with Rishi Bhuchar, CEO of CBRE UK and Ireland, for a conversation that is as much about who he is as a person as it is about what he has built across one of the most decorated careers in real estate investment banking.
Rishi's story starts in a way that most people in this industry would not expect. Parents who arrived from India in the 1960s with nothing, a childhood where money was scarce and fitting in was hard, and a career that began not with a burning ambition for real estate but with a scramble for a summer placement and a salary that felt like life changing money.
What followed was three decades of building, leaving, returning and building again across Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, Ernst & Young, MGPA and Jefferies. Along the way he led the $65 billion Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield deal, the largest real estate transaction ever done in Europe, took Jefferies from unranked to number one in UK real estate M&A in five years, and quietly funded schools in India, yoga classes for pensioners and homeless people in London, all without telling anyone.
We discuss what it actually felt like to walk into CBRE not knowing a single one of the 3,500 people in the business, why his wife predicted he would run a business long before he ever thought about it himself, and the leadership principles he has carried since his earliest days in banking when he learned how not to do things just as much as how to do them.
And of course, I asked Rishi the big question: Who are the People, what Property, and which Place would he invest in if he had Β£500 million to deploy?
Drop your thoughts in the comments.
We would love to hear your take.
Key Topicsβ His Early Career, the Moves, the Lessons and Reflections
β The Mammoth $65 Billion Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield Deal
β How Rishi Took Jefferies From Unranked to Number One in Five Years
β Why He Walked into CBRE Not Knowing a Single Person in the Business
β A Five-Point Leadership Philosophy: Clients, Margin, Data, Accountability, and Fun
β The 90% Stat About Fatherhood That Made Him Reassess Everything
β Receiving an MBE for Private Long-Term Support of Charities like Magic Breakfast
β Analysing the Current Market and Opportunities in Public Real Estate Securities
The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Rockbourne, recruiting leadership talent for real estate funds, owners, investors, and developers.
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This week is different. I'm joined by my friend Harry Wentworth Stanley, Investment Director at BauMont Real Estate Capital, for what I believe is the most important conversation I've ever had on this podcast.
20 years ago, Harry lost his older brother James to suicide. James was 21, in his final year at Newcastle, sporty, academic, popular, with no history of mental illness. Following a routine operation he went into a suicidal crisis over two weeks, walked into A&E asking for help, and was sent away as a low priority patient. He took his own life shortly after.
Harry committed to doing something significant in James' memory every decade. Ten years ago he rowed the Atlantic, opening the first James' Place in Liverpool in 2018. Now, on the 20-year anniversary, 22 May 2026, he's taking on 'Journey For James': cycling, paddle boarding, and running 400+ miles from Newcastle to London via Liverpool and Birmingham. Eight days, four cities, each home to a James' Place Centre. The aim: raise over Β£100,000.
About James' Place
A charity delivering life saving therapy to men in suicidal crisis. Free, fast, delivered by qualified therapists in centres that feel like a home, not a hospital. Four UK centres, with a fifth opening next year. Over 5,000 men have been through the doors since 2018.
What We Covered
The challenge, James' story, how Harry's family dealt with the unimaginable loss, why they decided to become 'operators', why the James' Place model works, the male only focus, changing the vernacular around suicide, and the most important question: if you're worried about someone, ask them directly. Two construction workers in the UK take their own lives every working day. This matters not only for our industry, but for every single one of us.
How To Support
Donate: https://www.justgiving.com/page/journeyforjames
Β£15 pays for the first conversation with a man in suicidal crisis to get him the help he needs, the first step in his recovery.
Β£25 covers the cost of booking appointments for 10 men in suicidal crisis
Β£50 provides an initial assessment for a man in suicidal crisis at a James' Place centre, within two working days of him seeking help.
Β£110 covers the cost of a therapy session in the safe and welcoming environment of a James' Place centre.
Β£250 delivers one outreach session at a company or in the community to help James' Place to reach more men in need.
Β£850 funds one therapist for a week, meaning 20 men do not face their crises alone.
Β£2,000 supports one man through James' Place's life-saving intervention, enabling him to dismantle his crisis and find hope for the future.Do us a favour and share this conversation.
Ask the difficult question.
And if you want more info:
James' Place: https://jamesplace.org.uk
Harry's LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harry-wentworth-stanley-81b58b61/
James' Place LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/james-place-charity
Harry, you're a legend. I have no doubt James would be so proud of you.
Go get it!
Matt
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This week, I sat down with Mark Russell, CIO and Head of Real Estate at Federated Hermes, for a conversation about what it really means to build a career on first principles, and why that philosophy is becoming more valuable in today's market than it has been in years.
Mark's route into real estate began with a week of work experience organised by his headmaster, driving around the southeast in a sports car looking at office buildings. He was 17. It is a story that says something important about how the industry finds its people, and more pointedly, about how many people it never finds at all.
What followed was a career built across some of the most formative environments in UK real estate. JLL in the nineties, Legal and General managing institutional mandates, and then Prestbury Holdings where working closely with Nick Leslau taught him a set of disciplines that have stayed with him ever since. It is better to be bored than bust. Know why you are doing what you are doing. And collect the rent.
We discuss his arrival at Federated Hermes, what he found when he got there, and the patient process of listening, questioning and recalibrating that any leader needs to go through before they can move an organisation forward. Mark is refreshingly honest about what that looks like in practice and why asking dumb questions is one of the most underrated tools a CIO has.
The conversation then turns to the Federated Hermes business itself. An integrated platform spanning development, asset management and operations, with MEPC, one of the UK's most storied development businesses, sitting at its centre. Mark makes a compelling case for why that combination is exactly what the market needs right now, and why 82% of the total return from real estate over the past 40 years has come from income rather than capital growth.
And of course, I asked Mark the big question:
Who are the People, what Property, and which Place would you invest in if you had Β£500 million to deploy?
Drop your thoughts in the comments. We would love to hear your take.
Key Topics
β Nick Leslau, Prestbury and the Discipline of Knowing When to Sell
β Why Property Management Is the Most Undervalued Part of the Industry
β How to Lead an Organisation Through Uncertainty Without Losing the Team
β The Case for Income Over Capital Growth in the Current Cycle
β Why Urban Regeneration and Brownfield Sites Are the Biggest Opportunity in UK Real Estate
The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Rockbourne, recruiting leadership talent for real estate funds, owners, investors, and developers.
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This week, I sat down with Justin Hildebrandt, Senior Managing Director and Head of Europe at Affinius Capital, to explore a career that began on construction sites in Napa Valley and has taken him to the forefront of one of the most quietly formidable real estate platforms operating in Europe today.
Justin's path into real estate was shaped early. A father in construction, summers spent on job sites, and a year in Germany as a 16-year-old exchange student that he credits with permanently expanding his ambitions and ultimately pulling him back to Europe decades later. That move to London on the day of the Brexit vote, intended as a short term expat stint, is now approaching a decade.
We discuss the journey from USAA Real Estate, where Justin joined a 3 billion dollar business in 2011 and helped grow it to the 62 billion dollar platform it is today, and what that kind of growth actually requires in terms of creativity, discipline and the willingness to pivot into new strategies before the market catches up. Justin is candid about how the business got there and why AUM for its own sake was never the point.
The conversation unpacks each of Affinius Capital's European strategies in detail. The Mount Park logistics platform that started with a handful of transactions and became a wholly owned pan-European business. The data centre strategy in West London that took three years to get through planning and is now a 140 megawatt site. The living strategy built in partnership with Package Living. And a credit platform that has grown to around 20 billion dollars of AUM globally and is increasingly active in Europe at exactly the right point in the cycle.
Justin also shares a perspective on the European market that is genuinely unusual. Having sat on the global investment committee and seen both sides of the Atlantic in real time, he makes a striking observation about where Europe now sits relative to the US in the current recovery.
And of course, I asked Justin the big question:
Who are the People, what Property, and which Place would you invest in if you had Β£500 million to deploy?
Drop your thoughts in the comments. We would love to hear your take.
Key Topics
β From Napa Valley to a Decade in London. The Career That Followed Opportunity Wherever It Led
β Growing a Business From $3Bn to $62Bn. What It Actually Takes
β Mount Park, Data Centres, Living and Credit. Inside the Affinius Capital European Platform
β Why Europe May Be Leading the US for the First Time in Several Cycles
β AI, Heat Mapping and the Future of Smarter Real Estate Decision Making
The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Rockbourne, recruiting leadership talent for real estate funds, owners, investors, and developers.
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This week, I sat down with Mark Bourgeois, Chief Executive of the Government Property Agency, for a conversation that bridges the worlds of private sector real estate and public sector purpose in a way that very few guests on this show ever could.
Mark's journey into real estate began not through a carefully planned career move but through a rugby sevens team at Donaldson's in Leeds. What followed was 25 years at the sharp end of the retail property industry, from running shopping centre teams at Capital Regional through to managing director roles at Hammerson, navigating two of the most turbulent periods the sector has ever seen. The Global Financial Crisis and the structural disruption of COVID taught him things about leadership under pressure that no business school could.
We discuss what it really feels like to lead a three billion pound business through a fight for survival, why staying close to your North Star matters more than ever when the ground is shifting beneath you, and how Mark's unusually broad grounding in finance shaped a career that consistently put him ahead of the curve in a sector famous for siloed thinking.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when Mark explains what drew him from the private sector into public sector leadership, first at Liverpool City Council during one of the most challenging periods in its modern history, and then to the GPA. He is candid about what surprised him, what frustrated him, and what has genuinely inspired him about leading a 500 person organisation with a mandate to transform how government uses its estate across the UK.
Mark also shares his thinking on AI and why he believes every leader has a personal responsibility to get deep into the technology rather than delegating it to someone else in the organisation.
And of course, I asked Mark the big question:
Who are the People, what Property, and which Place would you invest in if you had Β£500 million to deploy?
Drop your thoughts in the comments. We would love to hear your take.
Key Topics
β From Rugby Sevens to Real Estate. The Unlikely Career Origin Story
β Leading Through the Global Financial Crisis and the Retail Collapse
β What the Public Sector Teaches You About Leadership That the Private Sector Cannot
β Inside the Government Property Agency. The Mission, the Portfolio and the Opportunity
β Why Every Leader Must Be a Digital Leader Right Now
The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Rockbourne, recruiting leadership talent for real estate funds, owners, investors, and developers.
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This week, I sat down with James Jacobs, Managing Director and Global Head of Real Assets within the Private Capital Advisory team at Lazard, to explore the topic Real Asset Capital Formation: Who Wins?
In this conversation, James opens with a striking assessment of where the market actually stands. Fundraising volumes rose for the first time in four years in 2025, up 27% year on year. But the headline number masks a far more complex story. The market has never been more concentrated, more competitive or more unforgiving for managers who don't understand what investors are really looking for today.
James breaks down the three sectors attracting the lion's share of capital, why 1 in 3 dollars raised last year went into a single asset class, and why two sectors that dominated the industry when he started his career over 25 years ago are now considered niche. He also shares a clear and candid view on what distinguishes the managers who are winning capital from those who are not, and why the answer comes back to something surprisingly simple.
We then explore three structural trends that James believes will define the industry for years to come. The bifurcation of the market into mega funds and hyper-specialists, the rapid rise of secondaries and continuation vehicles as a portfolio management tool, and the blurring of the lines between real estate and infrastructure that is quietly redirecting billions of dollars across asset class boundaries.
π― Key Topics
β Global Fundraising in 2025. Recovery or Illusion?
β The Three Sectors Dominating Capital Formation Right Now
β Why the Squeezed Middle Is Getting Squeezed Even Further
β Secondaries and Continuation Vehicles. Powerful Tool or Manager Lifeline?
β The Convergence of Real Estate and Infrastructure and What It Means for Your Capital
The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Rockbourne, recruiting leadership talent for real estate funds, owners, investors, and developers.
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This week on People Property Place, we do something different. Recorded live on the ground at Mipim in Cannes, this episode is the first of a new format: People Property Place Profiles. Where I walk and talk with some of the most outspoken and influential figures across the real assets industry.
This week's conversation features Shaun Simons, co-founder of Compton, whose previous episode held the number one download spot on the show for nearly two years. Recorded in the middle of one of the industry's biggest annual gatherings, Shaun is characteristically unfiltered, direct and full of conviction.
The conversation opens with Shaun making a bold call β he is more optimistic about the market right now than he has been since 2021. He breaks down the three specific forces he believes are converging to make 2026 a genuinely pivotal year for the London office market, and why the narrative of an industry circling the drain is finally starting to shift.
Shaun also takes aim at one of commercial property's biggest blind spots β the industry's chronic failure to communicate with the people it is actually trying to do business with β and explains why he believes the big surveying firms have been getting this fundamentally wrong for years.
The discussion turns to the role of personal brand and social media in building a real estate business, where Shaun shares a remarkable story about how four years of consistent LinkedIn activity resulted in a 40,000 sq ft instruction he never had to pitch for. He also reveals that he attributes somewhere between 25 and 30% of Compton's total revenue directly to social media.
Finally Shaun shares his outlook for the year ahead, why he believes the stars are aligning for a genuine market recovery and what keeps him up at night as he leads a growing team of over 30 people.
Drop your thoughts in the comments. We would love to hear your take.
The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Rockbourne, recruiting leadership talent for real estate funds, owners, investors, and developers. π LIKE β‘ SHARE β‘ SUBSCRIBE π http://peoplepropertyplace.com/ -
This week, I sat down with Toby Phelps, Co-President of BGO, who has spent 30 years at the top of European real estate investing and been involved in over $20 billion of transactions across logistics, office, retail, residential and healthcare assets.
In this conversation, Toby traces a career that took him from JLL in the mid-nineties through Morgan Stanley's private equity real estate team, where he was in the building next to Lehman Brothers when the financial crisis hit. He reflects on what that moment did to his understanding of risk, and how the lessons absorbed at Tishman Speyer under Jerry Spier shaped everything that followed.
We explore the strategic evolution from Green Oak to BGO, now approaching $100 billion in AUM, why the merger with Bentall Kennedy made sense when so many others didn't, and what institutional investors are really demanding from managers today.
Toby also makes a compelling case for why European real estate remains one of the most misunderstood opportunities in global capital markets right now and why location, location, location needs a serious update.
And of course, I asked Toby the big question: Who are the People, what Property, and which Place would you invest in if you had Β£500 million to deploy?
Drop your thoughts in the comments. I would love to hear your take.
Key Topics
β From JLL to Morgan Stanley β building the foundations of a 30 year career
β Lehman Brothers, the financial crisis and what it really teaches you about risk
β Green Oak to BGO β the merger strategy that changed everything
β Why Europe is misunderstood by global capital
β AI, data science and the US versus Europe gap in real estate investing
Episode Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
00:09 - How Toby Got Into Real Estate
01:58 - Early Career at JLL
05:19 - Joining Morgan Stanley Real Estate
07:47 - Lessons from the Global Financial Crisis
09:49 - Tishman Speyer and Jerry Spier
12:42 - The Genesis of Green Oak
23:07 - Investment Strategy β Top Down Bottom Up
28:09 - Green Oak to BGO
31:36 - Sun Life and the Importance of a Capital Partner
33:57 - BGO's Five European Strategies
37:44 - Private Wealth Capital
42:27 - Location, Asset Quality and Power
44:01 - Is Europe Undervalued by Global Capital
46:20 - Succession Planning and Leadership
49:15 - AI and Data Science in Real Estate
54:00 - Attitude and Advice for the Next Generation
55:15 - The Β£500 Million Question
The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Rockbourne, recruiting leadership talent for real estate funds, owners, investors, and developers.
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This week, I sat down with Mathieu Elshout to explore the journey that took him from environmental sciences into institutional real estate investing, and how he is now helping build the European property platform for one of Australia's fastest growing pension funds.
Mathieu is Head of European Property at Aware Super UK. Before joining Aware Super, he spent more than a decade at PGGM managing European real estate investments through the Global Financial Crisis and subsequent recovery, and later worked at Patrizia where he helped develop the firm's sustainability and impact investing strategy.
In this conversation, Mathieu shares how his early career began in environmental consultancy before gradually transitioning into the real estate sector. That background continues to shape the way he thinks about real assets today, particularly the growing importance of sustainability, long term value creation and the role real estate plays in the wider economy. οΏΌ
We discuss his time at PGGM and the experience of managing institutional real estate portfolios during the Global Financial Crisis. Mathieu explains how those years shaped his perspective on leverage, liquidity and market cycles, and why some of the most valuable lessons in investing are learned during periods of stress. οΏΌ
The conversation also explores his move to Patrizia and the development of its impact investing strategy. Mathieu explains how sustainability evolved from a niche topic into a core investment consideration, and why institutional investors increasingly see environmental and social outcomes as aligned with long term financial performance. οΏΌ
Finally, we discuss Aware Super's growing presence in Europe and how the Australian superannuation model is creating some of the largest and most influential pools of capital in global real estate. Mathieu explains how the fund is building its European portfolio through partnerships and platforms including investments in UK residential, Spanish rental housing and hospitality, and why alignment with operating partners is critical when deploying long term capital. οΏΌ
Key Topics Covered in This Episode
β From Environmental Science to Real Estate
Mathieu's path from sustainability consultancy into institutional property investing.
β Lessons from the Global Financial Crisis
What managing real estate portfolios through a market downturn teaches investors.
β Sustainability and Impact Investing
How ESG and impact strategies became central to institutional real estate investing.
β Building Aware Super's European Platform
Why the Australian pension fund model is expanding rapidly into global real estate.
β Investing Through Partnerships
Why alignment with operating partners is essential for long term capital.
EPISODE CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
01:32 From Environmental Science to Real Estate
06:45 Early Career and Moving into Institutional Investing
14:10 Managing Portfolios Through the Global Financial Crisis
25:34 Sustainability and Impact Investing at Patrizia
36:22 The Aware Super Platform and European Expansion
47:18 Partnerships, Platforms and Investment Strategy
56:40 Where Opportunities Exist in Today's Market
01:02:11 The Β£500M Investment Question
And of course, I asked Mathieu the big question:
Who are the People, what Property, and which Place would you invest in if you had Β£500 million to deploy?
If you have thoughts or questions about this episode, drop them in the comments. I'd love to hear your take.
The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Rockbourne, recruiting leadership talent for real estate funds, owners, investors, and developers.
π LIKE β‘ SHARE β‘ SUBSCRIBE
π http://peoplepropertyplace.com/
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This week, I sat down with Michael Zerda to unpack a career that spans private equity real estate, distressed credit, structured capital and some of the most complex investment situations across Europe and the United States.
Michael is Global Head of Real Estate at Santander Alternative Investments and CEO of Deva Capital, the real estate and corporate capital solutions investment arm of the business. Over a 25 year career, he has helped raise more than $5 billion of capital and overseen the deployment of more than $11 billion of equity across more than 200 transactions across Western Europe.
In this conversation, Michael shares the story behind his journey from a Polish immigrant growing up in Texas to becoming a global real estate investor working across debt, equity and special situations. We explore how his early career developed through private equity real estate, distressed debt and high yield investing, and how those experiences shaped the way he approaches market cycles today. οΏΌ
We discuss why the widely predicted wave of real estate distress following the interest rate shock of 2022 has not materialised in the way many investors expected. Michael explains how stronger bank balance sheets, lower leverage and asset owners holding positions for longer have fundamentally changed the dynamics compared with previous cycles. οΏΌ
The conversation also explores where stress is actually appearing in the market today. Rather than dramatic distress events, Michael highlights a quieter liquidity squeeze affecting operators whose business models rely on transactions and capital raising. For investors able to deploy flexible capital across debt, structured equity or partnerships, this environment may present significant opportunities. οΏΌ
Finally, we discuss Michael's current role within Santander Alternative Investments, how the platform integrates real estate investing with corporate special situations, and where he sees opportunities emerging across Europe as markets adjust to the new interest rate environment. οΏΌ
Key Topics Covered in This Episode
β From Poland to Texas
Michael's unconventional journey into global real estate investing.
β The Distress That Never Came
Why the expected wave of distressed real estate has taken longer to appear.
β Liquidity Stress Beneath the Surface
How fundraising challenges and fewer transactions are impacting operators.
β Debt, Equity and Special Situations
Why flexible capital structures are becoming increasingly important.
β Where Opportunities Exist in Europe
How different markets are behaving very differently in the current cycle.
EPISODE CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
01:08 From Poland to Texas
05:12 Discovering Real Estate Investing
11:04 Early Career in Private Equity Real Estate
19:42 Distressed Debt and Market Cycles
30:11 Why the Distress Wave Never Came
42:05 Liquidity Stress in Real Estate
51:15 Building Deva Capital
57:55 Where Opportunities Exist in Europe
01:02:48 Deep Value Investing in Today's Market
01:07:10 The Β£500M Investment Question
And of course, I asked Michael the big question:
Who are the People, what Property, and which Place would you invest in if you had Β£500 million to deploy?
If you have thoughts or questions about this episode, drop them in the comments. I'd love to hear your take.
The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Rockbourne, recruiting leadership talent for real estate funds, owners, investors, and developers.
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π http://peoplepropertyplace.com/
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This week, I sat down with Emma Cariaga, Chief Operating Officer at British Land, to unpack what it really takes to run one of the UK's largest listed real estate businesses during a period of structural change, capital market pressure, and sector consolidation.
Emma is COO of British Land, a FTSE 100 property company with over 170 years of history and a portfolio concentrated in retail parks and London campuses. Having built her career from trainee land buyer to development director at Landsec before joining British Land, Emma brings deep operational and development experience across residential, mixed use, large scale regeneration and campus strategy, including the transformation of Canada Water into a major London campus.
In this conversation, Emma explains how real estate has fundamentally shifted from a passive, rent collecting asset class into an operational business requiring agility, data, customer centricity and active asset management. We explore why British Land continued developing while others paused, how limited supply of prime London office space is driving rental growth, and why retail parks have repositioned themselves into a 99% occupied format built around affordability, flexibility and convenience.
We also discuss the increasing importance of scale in listed real estate, the wave of M&A activity across the REIT sector, and whether smaller platforms can realistically survive in today's capital constrained environment. Emma shares insights on leadership, transitioning from being "on the tools" to operating at executive level, and why building non executive experience alongside an executive career can sharpen judgement.
Finally, we look at British Land's strategic positioning, its new headquarters move onto one of its own campuses, and what the next chapter may look like for the listed real estate sector.
Key Topics Covered in This Episode
β From Land Buyer to FTSE 100 Leadership
Emma's route into real estate and the lessons learned along the way.
β The Return of Prime London Offices
Why top quality space near transport nodes is in limited supply and delivering rental growth.
β Retail Parks Repositioned
How omni retailing and cost efficiency have driven 99% occupancy.
β Real Estate Has Become Operational
Flex products, shorter leases and a more customer focused asset model.
β Scale, M&A and The Future of Listed Real Estate
Why scale may now be essential in public markets.
And of course, I asked Emma the big question:
Who are the People, what Property, and which Place would you invest in if you had Β£500 million to deploy?
If you have thoughts or questions about this episode, drop them in the comments. I'd love to hear your take.
The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Rockbourne, recruiting leadership talent for real estate funds, owners, investors, and developers.
π LIKE β‘ SHARE β‘ SUBSCRIBE
π http://peoplepropertyplace.com/
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This week, I sat down with Michela Hancock to unpack the journey from psychology graduate to property entrepreneur, and how she helped pioneer institutional build to rent in the UK long before it was widely accepted.
Michela is the Co-Founder and CEO of Hilltop Property Partners. Before launching Hilltop, she worked across US and UK real estate, including early exposure to multifamily housing in the United States, and later bringing that institutional rental mindset into the UK market at a time when many believed renting would never become a lifestyle choice.
In this conversation, Michela shares how growing up in a family business shaped her entrepreneurial mindset, and why she made the difficult decision to pivot away from a career in clinical psychology after years of study. That willingness to change direction led her into real estate development, where she combined US multifamily experience with a long term conviction around UK rental housing.
We explore the early days of institutional build to rent in the UK, when pension funds and advisors were sceptical, and Michela was repeatedly told that everyone in Britain wanted to own rather than rent. She explains how she built conviction around demographic change, quality rental supply gaps and the concept of renting as a lifestyle choice.
The conversation then moves into Hilltop's strategy, targeting the so called squeezed middle and key worker demographic, where the need for high quality, attainable rental housing is most acute. Michela outlines the viability pressures facing mid market rental delivery today, and why building now into a supply constrained environment could create long term opportunity.
We also discuss capital raising in a global market where UK development competes for attention and allocation, and why resilience, persistence and finding the right partner can be more important than finding hundreds of investors. Michela shares candid lessons on entrepreneurship, including the advice she received that starting a business is like being in a rowboat with no oars, and why she chose to do it anyway.
This is a conversation about conviction, mid market housing, entrepreneurship and building through difficult cycles.
Key Topics Covered in This Episode
β From Psychology to Property
Why Michela pivoted careers after years of study and what that taught her about risk and conviction.
β Early Institutional Build to Rent
How she introduced US multifamily thinking into a sceptical UK market.
β Renting as a Lifestyle Choice
Challenging the assumption that everyone wants to own.
β The Squeezed Middle Opportunity
Targeting key workers and mid market rental housing in a viability constrained environment.
β Raising Capital in a Global Market
Why alignment and persistence matter more than volume.
β Building Hilltop Property Partners
Entrepreneurship, partnership and long term platform thinking.
β Resilience and Founder Mindset
The "never leave your chair" philosophy and showing up every day.
And of course, I asked Michela the big question:
Who are the People, what Property, and which Place would you invest in if you had Β£500 million to deploy?
If you have thoughts or questions about this episode, drop them in the comments. I'd love to hear your take.
The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Rockbourne, recruiting leadership talent for real estate funds, owners, investors, and developers. π LIKE β‘ SHARE β‘ SUBSCRIBE π http://peoplepropertyplace.com/
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This week, I sat down with Andrew Hynard to unpack a corporate career that spans more than three decades at JLL, the chief executive leadership of one of London's most prestigious estates, and a post-executive chapter advising some of the most interesting property businesses in the UK.
Andrew spent the majority of his career at JLL focused on Capital Markets, ultimately becoming Deputy Chairman of the UK business. He later became Chief Executive of The Howard de Walden Estate, overseeing 90 acres in Marylebone with a portfolio heavily weighted toward private healthcare in and around Harley Street. Today, he advises businesses including Clipstone Investment Management, Howard Group, Orega, Taurus Developments and Love Ventures, a VC investor in early stage technology companies οΏΌ
In this conversation, Andrew reflects on growing up as the son of a surveyor in Hastings and deciding at just ten years old that property would be his path. We explore his early decision to specialise in investment rather than rotate through departments, and why he later regretted not gaining broader technical grounding despite accelerating his capital markets career.
We go deep into his time at JLL, including the cultural and strategic forces behind the merger with King Sturge, how he navigated internal politics without burning bridges, and why playing the long game and treating people with decency became his defining leadership philosophy.
Andrew also shares the transition from advisory to client side when he became CEO of Howard de Walden, what it really means to run a Β£3β4 billion estate in one of London's most complex submarkets, and why attracting world class healthcare operators like Cleveland Clinic was a defining moment.
We then turn to today's market. Andrew gives a candid view on the state of UK real estate, the leadership reset across major advisory firms, where growth is actually coming from, why income will dominate returns for the foreseeable future, and why he believes we are approaching an inflection point rather than a falling knife moment.
Finally, we explore his portfolio of advisory roles, his work in venture capital, and why mentoring the next generation is one of the most important investments he now makes.
Key Topics Covered in This Episode
β From Hastings to Deputy Chairman
How Andrew set his sights on property at age ten and built a 30+ year capital markets career.
β The King Sturge Merger
The first conversation that led to one of the most significant UK advisory mergers of the past two decades.
β Advisory vs Client Side
What changes when you move from broker to principal and how to make that transition successfully.
β Leading the Howard de Walden Estate
Healthcare, tenant mix strategy, stakeholder management and long term estate stewardship.
β The State of the UK Market
Flat growth, tentative optimism, income driven returns and why 2025 could be a turning point.
β Leadership Change Across UK Agencies
Why so many CEOs have changed and what the next generation must get right.
β Building a Post Executive Portfolio
Advisory roles, venture capital, mentoring and giving back to the industry.
And of course, I asked Andrew the big question:
Who are the People, what Property, and which Place would you invest in if you had Β£500 million to deploy?
If you have thoughts or questions about this episode, drop them in the comments. I'd love to hear your take.
The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Rockbourne, recruiting leadership talent for real estate funds, owners, investors, and developers.
π LIKE β‘ SHARE β‘ SUBSCRIBE
π http://peoplepropertyplace.com/
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This week, I sat down with Pavel Streblov to unpack how one of Central Europe's most established private real estate groups is entering the UK market, why London still matters, and what it really takes to build and deliver at scale as a developer in today's environment.
Pavel is Business Director at Penta Real Estate, a privately owned investment group founded by five university classmates, with major interests spanning healthcare, banking, media, and large scale urban real estate. Pavel leads Penta's UK platform and is responsible for its expansion into London, bringing institutional capital, long term thinking, and a developer led mindset into a market facing structural supply constraints.
In this conversation, Pavel explains why Penta chose to expand beyond its home markets in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, how the group reached scale domestically, and why development requires a fundamentally different approach to buying standing assets. We explore why building a credible pipeline matters more than one off success, and how local knowledge, council dynamics, and delivery track record determine whether a developer is taken seriously.
We discuss Penta's first major UK move, a joint venture with Ballymore across two residential schemes totalling around 700 homes and approximately Β£700 million of development value. Pavel shares how Penta thinks about quality, amenity, and long term ownership, and why entering the market at the bottom of the cycle can create asymmetric opportunity when supply is constrained.
The conversation also goes deep on the UK market itself. Pavel offers a blunt comparison between the UK and the Czech Republic, explaining how stamp duty, transaction costs, and mortgage pricing actively discourage ownership and push local buyers into renting. We unpack Gateway 2, viability pressure, delivery delays, and why flexibility and speed of decision making have become critical advantages in a market full of stalled and so called zombie projects.
We close by looking ahead. Pavel explains how Penta is already using AI in early stage design and option testing, and why being a developer ultimately requires optimism. If you fully price every risk, nothing ever gets built.
Key Topics Covered in This Episode
β Why Penta Chose the UK
How scale limits in home markets pushed Penta to expand and why London stood out.
β Development Versus Standing Assets
Why development is a long term commitment that requires local conviction and pipeline depth.
β The Ballymore Joint Venture
700 homes, Β£700m of value, and why scale matters from day one.
β Ownership, Stamp Duty and Market Friction
Why UK tax structures discourage buying and reshape demand dynamics.
β Gateway 2 and Viability Pressure
How regulation and delays are constraining supply and reshaping opportunity.
β Zombie Projects and Flexible Capital
Why creativity, speed, and structure now unlock returns.
β AI and the Developer Mindset
How technology supports decision making and why optimism still matters.
And of course, I asked Pavel the big question:
Who are the People, what Property, and which Place would you invest in if you had Β£500 million to deploy?
If you have thoughts or questions about this episode, drop them in the comments. I'd love to hear your take.
The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Rockbourne, recruiting leadership talent for real estate funds, owners, investors, and developers.
π LIKE β‘ SHARE β‘ SUBSCRIBE
π http://peoplepropertyplace.com/
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This week, I sat down with Dr. Kate Jarvis to unpack a journey that spans childhood instability, academic rigour, early machine learning, and the building of an AI native platform designed to fundamentally change how real asset decisions are made.
Kate is CEO and co founder of Fifth Dimension, a technology company powering decision making across real assets, underwriting, asset management and portfolio strategy for some of the world's largest real estate and investment organisations. With a PhD from Stanford and more than fifteen years building machine learning backed businesses across the US, UK and Europe, Kate sits at the intersection of deep technical expertise and real world operational experience.
In this conversation, Kate shares how growing up with her family home repossessed at a young age shaped her relationship with risk, security and institutions, and why those early experiences still influence how she builds businesses today. We explore her path through linguistics and early AI research, long before machine learning became mainstream, and how understanding language, prediction and inference laid the foundations for her later work in real assets.
We discuss how Kate entered real estate through shared ownership and institutional capital deployment, where she encountered the reality of manual underwriting, endless spreadsheets, PDFs and investment committee drag. That frustration became the catalyst for Fifth Dimension. Kate explains why most AI tools fail in regulated, high stakes environments, why auditability matters more than automation, and how Fifth Dimension works alongside investment teams to amplify judgement rather than replace it. The conversation also looks ahead to what it really means to be AI native, who wins over the next decade, and why smaller, smarter teams may soon outperform incumbents with scale alone.
Key Topics Covered in This Episode
β From Instability to Resilience
How early life experiences shaped Kate's approach to risk, ambition and long term thinking.
β From Linguistics to Machine Learning
Why language, prediction and inference sit at the heart of modern AI and real asset decision making.
β Why Real Estate Underwriting Is Broken
The operational drag inside institutional real estate and why spreadsheets still dominate billion pound decisions.
β Building Fifth Dimension
How shared ownership, manual IC processes and frustration with legacy workflows led to an AI native platform.
β AI as an Amplifier, Not a Replacement
Why human judgement, creativity and context still matter and how AI should support decision makers, not remove them.
And of course, I asked Kate the big question:
Who are the People, what Property, and which Place would you invest in if you had Β£500 million to deploy?
If you have thoughts or questions about this episode, drop them in the comments. I'd love to hear your take.
The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Rockbourne, recruiting leadership talent for real estate funds, owners, investors, and developers.
π LIKE β‘ SHARE β‘ SUBSCRIBE
π http://peoplepropertyplace.com/
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