Investment management firm Nuveen Real Estate is making two senior hires to its strategic transactions team in Europe, with the duo set to work out of its European head office in London.
Batih van Leer and Stefano Rubini will join Nuveen's senior leadership team, which oversees the management of the European real estate team’s overall business, starting in January. They take the roles of managing directors and co-heads of European transactions.
Van Leer joins Nuveen after nearly a decade at Ares and has previously held roles at CBRE Investment Management, focused on real estate acquisitions and asset management, and Savills in the Netherlands.
Stefano Rubini also joins from Ares, where he has worked for the past three years. Prior to this he spent six years at Partners Group in Switzerland and the UK. Rubini began his career in investment banking and project finance at UniCredit in Italy.
Nuveen said the pair have experience leasing investments across the UK, western and southern Europe, as well as the Nordics, in all major sectors. It added the appointments align with its focus on "sourcing and executing high yield investment opportunities across all real estate sectors".
Van Leer and Rubini will work with the firm's integrated sector specialist teams across Europe and will also oversee its European value add series, including capital raising and deployment for an upcoming second strategy, working with fund manager David Pearce.
Randy Giraldo, head of Europe at Nuveen Real Estate, said in a statement: "The recruitment of Batih and Stefano to Nuveen’s senior leadership team enhances our existing commitment to building a best-in-class European focused, diversified value add series. These appointments will provide senior strategic resource on key transactions, asset management oversight and strategy execution."