Barings hires Aberdeen’s Bengtsson as head of Nordics

Barings Real Estate Advisors, formerly known as Cornerstone Real Estate Advisors, has hired Nordics specialist Göran Bengtsson as head of the Nordics in order to grow its European real estate platform.

Based in Stockholm, Bengtsson will be responsible for sourcing and executing deals as well as overseeing the management of all of the firm’s Nordic real estate assets. He will also be responsible, the firm said, for expanding the business’ reach into the Danish and Norwegian markets.

Bengtsson will report to Gunther Deutsch, head of transactions Europe, and Charles Weeks, head of real estate Europe.

Prior to Barings, Bengtsson was head of asset management Nordics at Aberdeen between 2013 and 2016. Before that role, he was head of investment management for three years at the London-based firm.

“Goran’s appointment is further evidence of our long term commitment to European real estate and our objective on building deep local investment expertise,” said Weeks. “He will help us to execute our expansion in the Nordic region, which, given its strong economic fundamentals and mature real estate market, is a key geography for us,” he added.

“It is an exciting time to join Barings Real Estate Advisers. My initial focus will be to source investment opportunities for our commingled and separate account strategies, with core to value-add risk profiles. I will also look to deliver on executing our real estate asset management activities in Sweden and Finland,” said Bengtsson.

In September, Barings Real Estate Advisors, a subsidiary of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, completed a rebranding from its previous name of Cornerstone Real Estate Advisors. This enabled the firm to consolidate with other MassMutual subsidiaries, the parent company said last month. As such, Cornerstone is now linked with Babson Capital Management, Wood Creek Capital Management and Baring Asset Management, all under the Barings brand, in a change that was first announced in March.

Tom Finke, whose former title was chief executive of Babson, is now Barings’ chief executive officer and is leading the firm out of its headquarters in Charlotte. Scott Brown, whose former title was chief executive officer of Cornerstone, will continue to lead Baring’s real estate division.

Barings managed $275 billion in assets as of June 30.