CBRE head of infrastructure leaves

Umer Ahmad has left Richard Ellis (CBRE), the global commercial real estate services firm. Ahmad joined the organisation last July in the newly created role of head of infrastructure within the firm’s now-disbanded government and infrastructure team in London.

The move is understood to follow CBRE’s decision that its infrastructure effort should focus more on accommodation projects structured on a traditional property finance basis – rather than the project finance and infrastructure finance specialisation that Ahmad brought to the firm.

The change is part of a restructuring exercise whereby the wider government and infrastructure division has been disbanded and members of that division repositioned into either CBRE’s building consultancy division or into the asset strategies team within global corporate services. A spokesperson for CBRE said the intention was to offer public sector clients a broader range of services.

Ahmad brought more than a decade’s experience in infrastructure and project finance when he joined CBRE, having been a director in the infrastructure & structured project finance team at Barclays, where he led infrastructure acquisitions and coverage of the transport, healthcare and defence sectors.

CBRE’s government and infrastructure team, which was headed by Sarah Whitney, provided consulting and transaction services to private and public sector clients. On its website, CBRE claimed the team was focussed on “meeting the pressing Treasury-led demands for a step-change in asset efficiency and for new forms of public/private partnership”.

Los Angeles-based CBRE serves real estate owners, investors and occupiers through more than 300 offices globally offering a wide range of advisory services. CBRE Global Investors, the firm’s investment arm, has $94.8 billion in assets under management.