European Real Estate

Mr. King is a seasoned real estate investor with 19 years of continuous experience in acquiring assets and companies across diverse sectors and markets. As Senior Managing Director, he leads the European Real Estate team, providing guidance and support to drive asset performance and appropriately price risk.
Mr. King joined HMC’s European Real Estate team in 2007 and latterly served as the Principal for the UK, Ireland, and Netherlands, playing a pivotal role in investing, divesting and raising capital. Mr. King has managed acquisitions and dispositions representing €5.0 billion in value through four closed-end fund vintages. He was responsible for overseeing all aspects of the investment process, from deal sourcing, through negotiation, due diligence, financing, and execution. His tenure has equipped him with a profound understanding of the industry and the ability to identify opportunities for value creation. He has built and maintained strong relationships with industry professionals, resulting in a robust network and a track record of successful transactions.
Earlier in his career as an analyst in London, he worked at JPMorgan Cazenove where he contributed to the IPO of the first UK REIT and served as a corporate broker to several FTSE real estate clients. Prior to that, he worked in the real estate finance team at EY where he was involved in several significant structured transactions. He graduated in 2004 from the London School of Economics and holds a BSc. degree in Geography and Economics.

Mr. Rotaeche joined HMC’s European Real Estate Investment Team in 2007 and is responsible for HMC’s activities in Spain and Portugal. He has experience in sourcing, closing, financing properties and setting up joint ventures throughout the region. Mr. Rotaeche has been active in Spanish real estate investment since 2000 involving office, retail, logistics, hotel and residential asset classes. Prior to joining HMC, Mr. Rotaeche worked at CB Richard Ellis where he held the position of Institutional Investment Director for Spain and set up and managed Spain’s leading real estate investments group with specialist teams devoted to office, logistics, residential and hotels. During his tenure he led or sourced several deals including the design and structuring of most of the large corporate sale and leaseback transactions which took place in the period 2005 to 2007. He also provided strategic investment advice to several core and private equity funds ranging from acquisition advice to active asset management of their Spanish holdings. Mr. Rotaeche holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Instituto de Empresa and a Bachelor’s degree in Business Studies from London Metropolitan University. He is fluent in both Spanish and English.

Mr. Desautel joined the HMC European Real Estate Investment team in November 2007. Previously, he held the position of Senior Asset Manager with the French affiliate of Westbrook Partners. He has twelve years of experience in commercial and residential real estate acquisitions throughout France. Before that, he spent three years with Stern Stewart & Co, a New York-based management consultancy, both in their Paris and New York offices. Prior to joining Stern Stewart, he spent a year and a half based in Paris with Archon Group, a Goldman Sachs company, as a real estate acquisition analyst. Eric received an MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School and an M.S. from ESCP in Paris. He is fluent in both French and English.

Mr. Humphrey joined HMC’s European Real Estate team in September 2018 and is responsible for originating, executing and managing transactions predominately across Northwestern Europe. Prior to joining HMC he worked in London for the real estate investment team at Patrizia and the real estate finance team at Anglo Irish Bank. He graduated from the University of East Anglia and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business, Finance and Economics and holds a Master of Science degree in Real Estate from the University of Portsmouth.

Mr. Benevides joined HMC’s European Real Estate team in January 2020 and is responsible for Asset and Portfolio Management. Prior to joining HMC he was a portfolio manager at Kennedy Wilson Europe with responsibility for deal analytics, execution and reporting for their €4.7 billion European business. Prior to joining Kennedy Wilson Europe, he held investment and portfolio management roles at CBRE Global Investors and GE Capital Real Estate in the U.S. and Europe; specializing in fund and deal structuring for value-add and opportunistic investments. He graduated from Bentley University with a Bachelor of Science in Finance.

Mr. Davies joined the HMC European Real Estate Investment team in September 2006 from Hatfield Philips International where he managed a number of the UK and mainland European assets and loans of the Principal Transaction Group of Lehman Brothers. He qualified as a Chartered Surveyor in 1986. Prior to working at HPI, Huw spent over 20 years in private real estate practice becoming an equity director in the Investment Department of Gooch Webster. In his private real estate practice he mainly concentrated on the acquisition, disposal and valuation of investment properties for property companies, institutions and banks. He graduated in Economics from Cardiff University and in Land Economy from Cambridge University.

Ms. Clemente joined HMC’s European Real Estate Investment team in June 2015 and is responsible for overseeing the implementation of asset management strategies for investments across Europe.
Prior to joining HMC, she was Associate Director of Asset Management at AEW Europe, with responsibility over a portfolio of c.€1bn of assets under management in Spain, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Poland and Czech Republic. She led JV and operating partners to achieve target returns within the private equity funds through active lease, development, investment and sales management.
Prior to joining AEW, she spent 5 years at Prologis in different roles including Asset and Development Manager for Southern Europe where she managed a portfolio of c.€2bn in France, Italy and Spain. She led the acquisition and development of a 1M square metre mixed-use development where she served as Chairman of the Board.
She also has significant experience in retail investment, strategy and operations having worked at leading retailer Perimercados and Motion Retail Stores, which she co-founded.
Ms Clemente holds an MBA from INSEAD, a Masters of Industrial Engineering degree from University of Costa Rica and is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). She is fluent in Spanish, English and Italian.

Mr. Gross joined the Harbert European Real Estate team in June 2015. Prior to joining HMC, he worked at the financial real estate advisory and debt restructuring firm Irea as an analyst specializing in the hotel sector throughout Spain. Previously he worked in New York for the Credit Risk and Project Finance team at Banco Santander.

He graduated in 2013 from the Universidad Pontificia de Comillas (ICADE E-2) with a degree in Business Administration.

Mrs. de Moussac joined HMC’s European Real Estate Investment Team in January 2019 and is responsible for implementing value-creating strategies for French portfolio assets. Prior to joining HMC, she spent four years with the Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield group in their Paris and Amsterdam offices, where she led or was actively involved in the asset management of flagship shopping destinations and exhibition venues. She was also charged with developing new mixed-use investment opportunities. Previously she worked on limited-recourse financings in the Energy and Infrastructure Project Finance team at Credit Agricole CIB in both Paris and New York. She holds an MBA from ESSEC Business School in Paris and is fluent in French and English.

Mr. Amzallag-Asch joined HMC’s European Real Estate Investment Team in October 2020 and is responsible for due diligence and underwriting for French acquisitions. Prior to joining HMC, he spent four years with Savills Investment Management in London where he gained experience in asset acquisitions in various sectors and multiple European jurisdictions as well as implemented asset management initiatives. Previously, he completed four six-month internships in Paris with Accor Hotels, JLL, AXA IM Real Assets and AEW Europe. He holds a Master in Management – Grande Ecole from NEOMA Business School and is fluent in French, English and has an intermediate level of Spanish.

Ms. Xuereb joined HMC’s European Real Estate Investment team in September 2013. Prior to joining HMC, Ms. Xuereb worked at CBRE Global Investors where she most recently was an associate fund controller responsible for overseeing all fund accounting and financial information for two closed ended pooled UK property funds with a total initial capital contribution of £650 million. Prior to her role as fund controller, she was a fund accountant at CBRE Global Investors where she was responsible for the financial reporting to 13 institutional pension fund investors (including FTSE 100 companies) within the managed accounts business unit which had £4.5 billion of assets under management. Prior to joining CBRE Global Investors, she worked as a financial accountant and assistant fund accountant at Catalyst Capital LLP, a private real estate investment and asset management firm.

Ms. Xuereb is a Fellow Member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (FCCA).  She graduated from Chapman University in California with a Bachelors of Science degree in Business Management with an emphasis in Management.

Mr. Christie joined the Harbert European Real Estate team in April 2018 and is responsible for overseeing the financial management of Fund investments in continental Europe. Previously he worked with real estate and private equity clients in the audit department of KPMG in Jersey and in the transaction department of PwC in Malta. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant in South Africa in 2013 and as a Chartered Financial Analyst with the CFA Institute in 2016.

Mr. Dragos Cioaca joined the Harbert European Real Estate team in June 2023 and is responsible for overseeing the financial management of Fund investments in continental Europe. Prior to transitioning to the Harbert European Real Estate team, Mr. Cioaca was Manager of Luxembourg Fund Administration since July 2019, dedicated to HMC’s Credit Solutions and US Real Estate strategies. Prior to joining HMC, he was a Finance Manager at Centralis responsible for overseeing the accounting, tax and financial information for the US and Canadian portfolio in the oil and gas industry. Mr. Cioaca also has previous experience at Alter Domus as Senior Officer responsible for the accounting and tax compliance of real estate and private equity clients and at PwC Romania and PwC Poland as Tax Manager and Senior Associate with high-tech and private equity clients in the accounting and tax compliance department.

Mr. Cioaca qualified as a Chartered Accountant in Romania and Luxembourg in 2010 and 2018, respectively, and as a Tax Advisor in Romania with CCF Institute in 2014. He graduated from The Bucharest University of Economic Studies with a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting and Management Information Systems.