Carlyle hires Blackstone MD for Euro RE – Exclusive

Carlyle's Europe real estate head, Peter Stoll, who used to work for Blackstone, has hired Marc-Antoine Bouyer from his old firm to focus on acquisitions.

New York-based private equity giant The Carlyle Group has hired a second former senior European real estate executive of neighbor Blackstone in two years, PERE has learned.

Marc-Antoine Bouyer has joined his former Blackstone colleague Peter Stoll as Carlyle attempts to re-grow its real estate capabilities in the European marketplace.

Stoll left Blackstone in February 2015 to run the regional platform, which Bouyer has now joined to work on sourcing and executing acquisitions across the region.

At Blackstone, Bouyer oversaw French and pan-European hospitality acquisitions. Prior to his time at Blackstone, he spent two years at the now-defunct US investment bank Lehman Brothers.

The hire of Bouyer, as that of Stoll, will be seen in the market as a statement of intent to improve the future prospects for the firm’s ex-US investment program, which had dwindled in recent years.

According to transaction data provider Real Capital Analytics, Carlyle has been a net seller in real estate generally since 2011, during which its European holdings have reduced. Last year, for example, the firm made $559.15 million in purchases, but $2.86 billion in dispositions, $2.03 billion of which came in Europe, RCA said.

Carlyle’s latest real estate fund, Carlyle European Real Estate Partners III, which was launched in May 2007 and has €2.2 billion of commitments, had a -1 percent net internal rate of return as of June 30, according to the firm’s second quarter earnings.

Carlyle and Blackstone both declined to comment.