BlackRock Looking to Hire for its Global Real Estate Securities Business

Asset management giant BlackRock announced today the launch of its global real estate securities capability. The new investment platform stems from BlackRock’s long-term experience in the real estate investment business and its proven expertise in Fundamental Equity investment.

Industry veteran Mark Howard-Johnson has been appointed the Global Head of Real Estate Securities Management to lead the development of this business. One of his priorities will be to build a global team which is expected to include approximately six additional investment professionals by year-end.

“BlackRock is already the largest manager in the REIT sector across a broad range of products – expanding this expertise for dedicated actively managed products is a natural extension of the firm’s robust real estate capabilities,” said Jack Chandler, Global Head of Real Estate at BlackRock in a statement released today.

The new global real estate securities team will work closely with BlackRock’s real estate research and investment professionals to identify and pursue investible trends in the real estate industry. The team will also look to leverage the broad investment market insights and trading expertise of the Fundamental Equity teams at BlackRock.

“I am delighted to join the BlackRock real estate team to develop its actively managed public real estate securities platform," said Howard-Johnson. "BlackRock real estate investments span a wide range of strategies which now, with the addition of the active strategy, will be even more integrated and complementary of each other."

Mr. Howard-Johnson most recently served as Chief Investment Officer at Building & Land Technology, where he was responsible for launching its real estate securities management effort. Previously, Mr. Howard-Johnson was Global Head and Chief Investment Officer of REIT management at Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

In addition to growing the business to over $5 billion in assets under management, his team’s U.S. flagship offering produced strong results for clients on both an absolute and relative basis. He also helped launch real estate securities products that pursued income, international and long/short strategies. He holds a CFA and graduated from Dartmouth College.