David Steinbach, global chief investment officer, and Chris Hughes, CEO of capital markets, are taking on the additional roles of co-heads of investment management at Hines, the Houston-based real estate investor overseeing more than $124 billion in assets.
Reporting to the duo are three geographic chief investment officers: In the Americas, Alfonso Munk, who Hines poached from Prudential Real Estate Investors, and in Europe and Asia, Hines executives Alex Knapp and Lee Timmins, respectively. The trio, also in newly created roles, will join the firm's investment committee.
Hines says the move was in response to demand from some of the firm's institutional investors — including the $379.2 billion California Public Employees' Retirement System, Sacramento; Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Abu Dhabi; the National Pension Service of Korea; and Canada's Ivanhoe Cambridge — which are increasingly seeking to put larger checks to work.
"We are in the position to achieve more-meaningful scale for the largest and most-savvy investor partners as they consolidate their universe of managers," President and CEO Jeffrey Hines said in a statement, echoing a sentiment that prompted Brookfield Asset Management Inc.'s agreement to buy a majority stake in Oaktree Capital earlier this year.
"Over the next 10 to 15 years, we see a greater wave of capital being allocated to real estate," Mr. Steinbach said in an interview. "There's going to be a really big opportunity to lean into that and create products that give investors access to returns at a time when finding arbitrage is harder and harder."
Since 1991, Hines has created more than 50 investment vehicles, some of which exceed $1 billion, which represents a fraction of the record $20.5 billion that Blackstone Group raised this month for its newest real estate fund.
"There is an advantage of scale, and larger pools of capital are able to undertake some very interesting transactions," Mr. Hughes said. "Blackstone has clearly done that well but others can compete."
He added that Hines aspires to raise multibillion-dollar funds in the three regions it's focused on.
Mr. Munk, who is to start at the firm in October and will relocate to Houston from New York, had been the Americas chief investment officer for Prudential's investment arm, known as PGIM, which he joined in 2012. Before that, he spent a decade at Morgan Stanley Real Estate.
