Lloyds real estate finance director joins CBRE Capital Advisors

Andrea Pittaluga of Lloyds has joined CBRE Capital Advisors as a senior director, as part of the continued expansion of CBRE’s debt and structured finance business.

Pittaluga will work with Marco Rampin, CBRE’s head of mainland Europe debt & structured finance, to expand the continental debt advisory business.

Rampin said the 11-strong European debt finance team have advised on approximately 20 refinancings and acquisition financings this year, the majority in the Netherlands where it has an experienced team, and four in Spain and Portugal.

The French business, which started up under Celine Tashibayev a few months ago, has several live mandates, and CBRE is also working on a mandate in Central Europe.

The team is also believed to have been the adviser for SNS Bank on a portfolio sale of predominantly Dutch loans, called Project Hieronymus.

Pittaluga will develop the pipeline and be responsible for delivering strategic growth – a team in Sweden to cover the Nordics is in CBRE Capital Advisors’ sights for H1 2017, as is expanding the staff working in Paris.

Pittaluga was hired at Lloyds by head of global corporate real estate John Feeney in 2014 from Stormharbour Securities, as part of a drive to actively manage the bank’s balance sheet by distributing more of the large real estate loans that it wanted to be able to underwrite.

Pittaluga’s role was to focus on the type of private equity and institutional fund manager customers that the strategy suited.

Feeney made other appointments to rapidly implement a more active distribution strategy, including Ab Shome from RBS.

Although Lloyds’ model has not changed, it has, along with its peers, underwritten fewer jumbo loans this year, in line with a quieter UK investment market and a more cautious approach to lending.

It has also not had the opportunity that it had anticipated two years ago to originate to distribute via CMBS. Instead of picking up, the CMBS market fell back.

Shome also left Lloyds this year, to head up real estate finance at international developer the Lodha Group. He had worked with Lloyds’ real estate distribution director Paul Homewood, and was not replaced.

CBRE Capital Advisors has another 17 experts in its UK and Ireland debt & structured finance team who report to Steve Williamson. Rampin said he believed the increasing political and economic uncertainty in Europe meant “clients will be looking for more advanced financial solutions and structures.”