Internos Real Investors, the European real estate investor and asset manager, has taken a significant step towards building a hotels and leisure property business.
London-based Internos has hired Jochen Schäfer-Surén as partner and head of the firm’s specialist division. He starts on 1 January next year.
Formerly a member of the global executive committee at Invesco Real Estate, Schäfer-Surén also founded the hotel and leisure fund management business for the Dallas-based company.
He helped raise €350 million for Invesco’s first European hotel real estate fund and was fund manager responsible for its acquisitions, asset management and fund management.
He also managed a €300 million separate account mandate for hotel investments on behalf of the Generali insurance group.
Prior to this, Schäfer-Surén worked at the investment bank Lazard & Co as well as for the hotel groups Meridien, Hilton and Trusthouse Forte in New York, Paris and London.
He said in a statement he would build a dedicated hotel and leisure team as part of the wider Internos business.
“Given the start of a recovery in the hotel sector and real estate investment markets, I see this as an excellent time to use our combined experience to offer investors enticing opportunities in this specialist sector,” he said.
Internos executive chairman, Jos Short and co-founder Andrew Thornton, have both worked with their new hire. Short and Schäfer-Surén worked at Lazard & Co when Short was head of its real estate investment banking team. Thornton worked with him while he was chief operating officer at Invesco's European real estate business.
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