Transwestern hired a commercial real estate finance and capital raising veteran who worked for several years at major institutional investment firms to lead its capital markets group at a time when access to funds for developments and investments have been constricted.

The Texas-based firm said it hired Brian Delgado as a senior managing director and global head of capital markets. In his new role, Delgado will work with Charles Hazen, president of Transwestern Investment Group, and Carleton Riser, president of Transwestern Development Co., to lead business development and capital-raising efforts for Transwestern's companies, the firm said.

Delgado has more than two decades of experience working with U.S. and foreign institutional investors, pensions funds, sovereign wealth funds, foundations and family offices. He joined Transwestern from CrossHarbor Capital Partners, where he was the managing director of business development and investor relations, At CrossHarbor, he secured more than $1.2 billion in investor commitments for company-sponsored comingled equity funds.

Before that, he led international capital-raising efforts at private equity firm Rockpoint Group and worked for 15 years at financial powerhouse GE Capital, where he most recently served as head of capital raising and investor relations in the United Kingdom and the Asia-Pacific region.

In addition to its U.S-based investment and development activity, Transwestern has strategic alliances with BNP Paribas Real Estate in Europe and Encor Advisors in Canada, company spokesperson Monica Sparreo said in an email.

Transwestern has created the new role of global head of capital markets at a challenging time for investors and developments working to secure financing for acquisitions and new projects. Some lenders have pulled back from providing commercial real estate loans. Also, generally higher interest rates, coupled with uncertainty in the global economy and commercial property market, have resulted in a drop in available debt and equity and reduction of money flowing across borders for transactions.

The increased cost of capital and conservative underwriting "are subduing the pace of transaction closings," according to the most-recent edition of JLL's Global Real Estate Perspective.

"Fundraising is more challenging in the current climate as investors put additional allocations to the asset class on hold until denominator effect uncertainty subsides," JLL said in the November report. "Direct investment declined globally during [the third quarter], down 46% year-over-year to US$131 billion. This brought year-to-date volumes to US$423 billion, reflecting a decrease of 50% and the lowest level of direct investment in over a decade."

As for cross-border investment, it dropped by 56% through Oct. 31, "representing the lowest share of cross-border investment on record," JLL said in its report.

Still, Transwestern said now is the time to ramp up its global capital-raising efforts with the addition of Delgado, who has "a deep understanding of the global investment market and an ability to build strategic partnerships," Hazen said in a statement. With Delgado's track record in the global investment community "will help us expand and diversify the firm's relationships" and enable Transwestern to present new opportunities to its partners and clients.

Transwestern Investment Group is a real estate investment adviser that has sourced and executed more than $7 billion of real estate investments in 26 markets. Transwestern Development's portfolio contains logistics, multifamily, healthcare, office and mixed-use properties. Since 2012, it has delivered and started work on more than $9 billion of real estate projects.

Delgado will be based in Boston but will spend time in Houston and Dallas, Sparreo said.