BlackRock’s global head of infrastructure and real estate to depart

Anne Valentine Andrews, global head of infrastructure and real estate at BlackRock, is leaving the New York-based asset management firm, PERE has learned.

“Anne Valentine Andrews, who played an important role in developing our infrastructure and real estate businesses, has decided to leave the firm to pursue another opportunity. She will remain an adviser to the firm in the months ahead,” BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink and president Rob Kapito disclosed in an internal memo that was sent on Friday and seen by PERE.

Valentine Andrews, who joined BlackRock in 2014, became deputy head of the real assets business – which comprises real estate and infrastructure – in 2019. She was promoted to global head of BlackRock Real Assets in April 2021.

As global head, she oversaw the reorganization of the real estate business from a regional to a more centralized approach, which included the launch of global value-add and core-plus real estate platforms in 2022 and 2023 and the appointments of Thomas Mueller-Borja and Paul Tebbit as chief investment officers of those platforms, respectively.

Under her tenure, however, BlackRock’s real estate team also underwent significant turnover among its longstanding senior executives. EMEA head of real estate Justin Brown and head of US real estate investment management John Lamb both left in 2022 after 10 years and 19 years at the firm, respectively. Lamb subsequently became head of portfolio management at Berkshire Residential Investments.

Those exits were followed by that of Ben Young, head of US equity, who left BlackRock Real Estate in early 2023 to join Indianapolis-based multifamily and mixed-use real estate manager Buckingham after nearly a decade at the asset manager.

Young’s departure coincided with other senior leadership changes announced in January of last year, including Tebbit’s elevation to global chief investment officer of core real estate. The move marked Tebbit’s second promotion in less than a year, having been elevated from chief investment officer for BlackRock EMEA Real Estate to replace Brown as head of EMEA real estate the previous June.

At the same time, head of APAC real estate John Saunders assumed the newly created role of global head of clients, responsible for strengthening the firm’s relationships with its real estate clients and partners globally. By the end of 2023, however, Saunders was also on the way out, with an official departure date set for February. He has worked at BlackRock Real Estate since 2007 and will be handing the Asia real estate leadership reins to executives Hamish MacDonald and Stella Ju. In late December, Link Asset Management announced that Saunders will join the Hong Kong-based company as group chief investment officer, effective March 4.

Prior to working at BlackRock, Valentine Andrews was co-head and chief operating officer for Morgan Stanley’s infrastructure platform. Before joining Morgan Stanley in 2006, she was a director at Macquarie Bank in both Melbourne and New York.

Edwin Conway, who led the private markets equity investing teams and strategy at BlackRock as global head of equity private markets, will also be leaving the firm later this year, the memo stated. He will be replaced by former deputy head of EPM Brent Patry.

The memo disclosing the leadership changes was released in conjunction with BlackRock’s announcement Friday that it had agreed to acquire Global Infrastructure Partners in a transaction valued at $12.5 billion. In a separate memo this week, Fink and Kapito also announced that BlackRock would be laying off 3 percent of its global staff – amounting to around 600 employees in the firm’s latest round of layoffs.

BlackRock’s real estate business managed $28 billion in assets as of December 31, according to the firm’s Q4 2023 earnings results. The world’s largest asset manager, the firm reached $10 trillion in total AUM by year-end.