Lehman Recruits Real Estate Team

Lehman Brothers has poached four bankers, including two managing directors, from rival Wachovia Securities for its growing real estate business during a boom for the property industry.

The two managing directors are Scott Schaevitz and Lisa Beeson. Beeson will focus on real estate M&A and will report to Paul Parker who heads U.S. M&A for Lehman. Beeson joined Wachovia in 2004 after 11 years in the M&A group at Morgan Stanley.

Schaevitz will focus on general real estate dealmaking and report to Steve Hash, head of global real estate investment banking for Lehman. Schaevitz joined Wachovia predecessor First Union in 2000 after spending eight years helping to build the real estate investment banking business of Prudential Securities.

The ex-Wachovia team also includes new senior vice president June Yu, who will work with Schaevitz in the real estate group, and vice president Deborah Smith, who will join Beeson in the real estate M&A group.

Lehman has made several other hires in real estate, including real estate analysts Michael Prew and Chet Riley from Citigroup and Bart Gysens from Morgan Stanley, however there have been departures.

UBS Investment Bank lured former Lehman head of European real estate Wilson Lee as well as Nick Hill, head of UK real estate finance. Lee then hired Lehman real estate banker Nick Bull to join him at UBS.

Banks have their eye on growth in all aspects of the real estate industry as rising interest rates threaten to unbalance the sector. This week, Morgan Stanley announced it had raised a $1.75bn real estate fund and has done thee deals in the sector in the past month alone. Earlier this month, RBC Capital Markets launched its U.S. mortgage capital business, which will focus on commercial mortgage-backed securities. JP Morgan also expanded its CMBS business into the southeast U.S. last month.