Edmond de Rothschild's real estate investment management business has made DJ Dhananjai its chief investment officer in the UK, while adding two others to its senior team across Europe.
Based in London and reporting to Edmond de Rothschild REIM UK’s chairman John Partridge, Dhananjai will lead Edmond de Rothschild REIM’s business in the UK, which deals in the residential sectors including affordable housing and build-to-rent.
He also becomes part of the European leadership team, with a remit to "service investors seeking enhanced exposures to impact UK living sectors". He has more than more than 25 years’ experience of the living sectors in the public and private sectors.
Dhananjai joins from Royal London Asset Management, where he was head of living. He spent 14 years at CBRE Investment Management, managing global segregated account client portfolios and then establishing a UK residential platform with a fund focused on affordable housing. For that fund, he was responsible for capital raising, product development, investment strategy and deployment.
Before joining CBRE Investment Management, he was a senior manager at Homes England and a regeneration and regional economic specialist in the Thames Gateway region.
The second addition to the team is Robbert Zoet, who becomes head of real asset distribution for REIM. Zoet will be responsible for leading a team of four senior business development professionals dedicated to real assets investment strategies and capabilities.
He will report to Edmond de Rothschild asset management’s global head of distribution, Marie Jacot. The group said Zoet will have "direct client coverage responsibility, as well as acting as a real estate product specialist and adviser" to the asset management’s local distribution teams across all international markets.
He has more than 30 years’ professional experience in public and private markets and, prior to joining the firm, built up his business development, alternative investment and financial services expertise in private equity real estate at Redevco and Moorfield Group.
He also spent 20 years in the public equity markets with Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Lombard Odier.
Fabrice Lefevre-Sory becomes part of the Paris office as a senior real asset sales and will be managed by Robbert Zoet. He will be responsible for its real assets business development working across Europe and the Middle East.
Lefevre-Sory spent four years as a senior business developer for alternative and real assets at Natixis Investment Management, covering EMEA and APAC, and was also a managing director at European Equity and Advisory for five years.
He has also worked international real estate sales director roles at Abrdn and UFFI REAM from 2006 to 2012. He started his career in 2002 as a senior investment manager in alternative investments, covering EMEA and Asia-Pacific for CNP Assurances.