Ivanhoé Cambridge, the Montreal-based real estate arm of Quebec's pension fund known Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, has appointed Michael Caracciolo to head its first U.S. office, to be located in New York City.
As well as leading the office in Manhattan at Rockefeller Center at 1211 Avenue of the Americas, he will assume the newly created position of vice president of asset management for the United States. Ivanhoé Cambridge's U.S. portfolio is valued at about US$28 billion, according to a statement from the company.
Ivanhoé Cambridge has opened the office, which it shares with its partners at CDPQ and Otéra Capital, at the 44-floor office tower it owns in the region. That area accounts for about 50% of its global portfolio, according to a statement.
“The decision to add an office presence in New York City reflects the evolution of where our business is today and where we strive to be in the future,” said Nathalie Palladitcheff, president and CEO of Ivanhoé Cambridge, in the statement.
Ivanhoé Cambridge's plan to focus on what it calls "a vital market" comes as other global institutional investors are expecting office property values to decrease significantly in New York.
About 79% of investors expect office values to decrease there over the next 12 months, according to a recent survey by the Association for International Real Estate Investors, or AFIRE, a nonprofit trade group based in Washington, D.C.
AFIRE's members includes institutional investors, pension funds, asset managers and other organizations from two dozen countries with a collective US$3 trillion in assets under management.
Meanwhile, Ivanhoé Cambridge's new hire Caracciolo previously spent 18 years at New York-based real estate developer Tishman Speyer.
At Tishman Speyer, Caracciolo most recently served as head of asset management for their flexible office platform called Studio.