Global property consultancy Knight Frank appointed Edward Owen as head of International Capital USA as it looks to "supercharge" its new alliance with Berkadia, the joint venture between Berkshire Hathaway and Jefferies Financial, and tap into surging North American investment activity that crosses borders.
Owen has 17 years experience in international commercial real estate and will be based in the Washington office of Berkadia in the United States.
Knight Frank and Berkadia announced a strategic alliance in January to provide capital markets services to multimarket clients globally.
Most recently, Owen spent 18 months at United Kingdom-based property consultancy Mason Owen. He spent four years at WeWork between 2017 and 2021 as head of new markets, real estate in EMEA.
Owen led the coworking group’s real estate expansion across Spain, Central & Eastern Europe, Scandinavia and South Africa during what Knight Frank described as a "hypergrowth phase and subsequent restructure". It says Owen was responsible for sourcing, negotiating, and signing over 1 million square feet of commercial offices.
Prior to that Owen spent 10 years living in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Chengdu and Miami while at developer Swire Properties. He worked primarily on downtown mixed-use developments, leading the office leasing team in Miami as part of Swire’s $1 billion mixed-use development, Brickell City Centre.
Knight Frank says that as head of International Capital USA he will be responsible for working with Berkadia partners to "identify, pursue and execute large-scale capital markets transactions" in the United States. That will involve sourcing offshore capital via Knight Frank’s global network.
He will establish an international capital desk tasked with managing inbound capital into the Berkadia network, as well as working with United States investors focusing on the United Kingdom, Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region.
He will work with Knight Frank’s Neil Brookes, global head of capital markets, and James Mannix, global head of living sectors, as well as Berkadia’s Knight Frank alliance ambassador and executive vice-president head of production Ernie Katai.
Brookes, global head of capital markets at Knight Frank, said in a statement that its alliance with Berkadia comes at a pivotal time, with a "surge" in investment activity led by North America-based investors.
Mannix said the company is on a mission to build the "world’s best and most-trusted global living sectors advisory platform" and the alliance with Berkadia is founded on a shared interin this area.
In January, Knight Frank, a top-five brokerage in the United Kingdom, and Berkadia, a leading commercial real estate adviser in the United States, announced an alliance.
Knight Frank already has two American alliances. It formed a partnership with Douglas Elliman, one of the largest residential brokerages in the United States and in 2021, it announced a partnership with Cresa, the occupier-focused commercial real estate firm, to provide an integrated global platform for corporate occupiers. That came after Knight Frank had ended a long-term partnership with Newmark.
Newmark has subsequently focused on building its business in the United Kingdom via acquisitions of leading brokers Gerald Eve, Harper Dennis Hobbs and BH2.
Knight Frank is unusual among the United Kingdom's top five real estate brokers in that it remains a limited liability partnership while its peers JLL, Savills, Cushman & Wakefield and CBRE are listed.
In its last accounts it reported rising revenues in its full-year results to the end of March 2023. It said it was expecting to report a revenue increase to £670 million (2022: £665 million), while its group profit of £195 million is closer to the 2021 level after the "exceptional" profits of 2022.
Founded in 1896, and headquartered on London's Baker Street, it has 488 offices across 53 territories and more than 20,000 staff.