Ex-JER directors form European start-up

Former JER Partners head of acquisitions in Europe, Bill Hancock, and director, Robert Kingsmill, have launched Resolute Asset Management, a new firm offering asset management and consultancy services in Europe.


A pair of former JER Partners senior executives have launched a European asset management and consultancy practice focused on real estate in Europe.

Bill Hancock, JER’s ex-head of acquisitions in Europe, and Robert Kingsmill, who was a director at the McClean, Virginia-based firm, have launched Resolute Asset Management, a new business based in London. Resolute, which will aim to provide services focused on distressed debt and equity positions in real estate portfolios across European and former CIS countries, will initially have five staff.

The firm will seek to work with lenders, investors and institutions which own distressed real estate-related financial assets that “present significant complexity or geographical complications”.

Hancock, who is managing partner of Resolute, said: “We see a significant market need for an independent asset management business, with expertise in understanding the full value chain of indirect real estate exposures.”

“We are focused on providing these specialised services to lenders and investors who do not have the internal resources to monitor and manage investments outside their core markets, and therefore complementing their existing team.”

Hancock, also a former executive at Credit Suisse, was one of three senior European directors at JER to be made redundant in October last year as the private equity real estate business shifted its strategy away from investment, according to a report by UK commercial property magazine Property Week. The other JER executives to leave then were Mark Chamieh and David Merchant. Their responsibilities fell to managing directors Chester Barnes and Karim Habra.

According to the report, Hancock, who was at JER since 2004 spearheaded a number of investments across Europe, including in a large logistics development venture in Turkey in 2008.