The global head of investor relations and capital markets at AXA Real Estate Investment Managers has resigned from the group and will take a new position at a New York-based firm, PERE has learned.
Dietrich Heidtmann, who joined AXA in September 2012 with global responsibility for all investor relations activities, handed in his notice recently according to sources and will begin a new role at GTIS Partners this September. The new hire will report directly to GTIS president and chief investment officer, Tom Shapiro, and be responsible for investors outside the US.
It is understood that Heidtmann will remain in Paris where he was stationed for AXA – effectively representing GTIS’s first office in Europe.
As PERE has previously reported, GTIS saw its senior fundraiser Bill Cisneros leave the company in May, so Heidtmann has been recruited to help fill that role.
AXA has not issued a statement concerning Heidtmann’s departure. He joined the company which is one of the biggest real estate investment managers in the world, after a brief spell at Grosvenor, the UK-based private real estate owner, developer and fund manager. Prior to that, he was at Morgan Stanley for 18 years where he was head of real estate capital markets, EMEA.
AXA's real estate business currently has 10 people named as being part of a team dealing with 160 external clients. Deborah Shire is global head of business development and Charles Daulon du Laurens is head of investor relations for real asset finance. Other members of the team in Europe are Michael Husung, Jorg Senftleben, Stephan Ackermann, and Julien Conte. Global head of Asia is Frank Khoo, while in North America, Elizabeth Behnke is head of sales and investor relations and Theo Dunoyer is director, marketing and investor relations.
Sources point out that GTIS has already worked with Heidtmann in the past. While at Morgan Stanley, he advised on GTIS’s Brazil Real Estate Fund I, which collected $510 million between 2008 and 2009.
GTIS is currently said to be preparing to launch its third Brazil property vehicle, GTIS Brazil Real Estate Fund III, and its second US residential real estate fund, GTIS US Residential Strategies Fund II. In an April press release, IMRF announced that it had committed $75 million to the Brazil vehicle.
As well as a New York office, the company operates out of Los Angeles, San Francisco and São Paulo.
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