CNM Estates poaches former Gatehouse financing chief

CNM Estates has appointed Natale Giostra its head of treasury and capital markets.

The move sees Giostra, the former head of real estate financing at Gatehouse Bank, switch sides to become responsible for raising capital for CNM Estates’ projects.

Developer and investor CNM Estates builds mainly residential schemes in South West London.

Giostra is tasked with negotiating and structuring secured and unsecured financings and joint venture partnerships. He will also arrange public capital market offerings, bond issuances and execute derivative hedging instruments.

“This is a good opportunity for me to do something different,” said Giostra.

“Having never worked on the equity side before – I’ve done all my career on the lending side – I think this is an exciting time to be in the equity side. I bring with me over a decade of debt origination, structuring and syndication experience and am focused on expanding the financing sources of CNM Estates.”

In April, Giostra left his role at Gatehouse, which is controlled by the Kuwait Investment Authority and invests in accordance with Shariah principles.

He had been at the Islamic bank 18 months and had built up a four-strong team, providing a £22.5m senior funding for the Holiday Inn in Acton. More recently, he won a $100m mandate from a US investor to provide mezzanine finance in Europe.

Gatehouse is still seeking a replacement for him.

Kingston-based CNM Estates has completed or is building 22 schemes and has a development pipeline of about £1bn.

“Over the last few years we have seen new financial institutions entering the market offering a variety of financing structures,” said Wahid Samady, chairman of CNM Estates.

“Natale is the best in class to navigate the complexity of these new financial offerings and will be fundamental in cementing CNM Estates’ new funding relationships.”