Blackstone has appointed Jonathan Pollack senior managing director in its real estate group.

Deutsche Bank’s former global head of commercial real estate will be chief investment officer for Blackstone Real Estate Debt Strategies (BREDS). Pollack will report to Mike Nash, the global head of BREDS.

“[Blackstone] are the leading real estate investor in the world today in almost every sector,” said Pollack. “I see terrific opportunities here and I am looking forward to working with the team.”

Pollack joined DB in 1999 from Nomura Bank and built it into one of the US’s top CMBS originators, as well as leading on major financings; Real Estate Capital’s readers voted DB CMBS lender of 2014  in both Europe and the US as well as pan-European lender of 2014.

In the US, DB completed $23.5bn of CMBS deals in 2014 and has been top bookrunner in both the US and globally for the past four years.

“Jonathan’s talents and experience will help accelerate and enhance our growth. Our real estate debt business has grown dramatically in the past few years, in size, scope and geography,” said Blackstone’s Nash.

“Today, we manage nearly $10bn of investor capital through our publicly traded mortgage REIT (BXMT), our private mezzanine debt funds, and our CMBS investing platforms. Our recent purchase of mortgages from General Electric has scaled the business even further.”

Blackstone’s real estate business was founded in 1991 and has approximately $93bn in investor capital under management.