MSREI reshuffles senior execs

Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing is now under new leadership, following Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s formation of a new real assets group.

John Klopp, formerly co-head of MSREI, has been named head of real assets at MSIM, the investment management arm of New York-based investment bank Morgan Stanley, and will transition out of his roles as co-chief executive and co-chief investment officer and head of Americas at MSREI, Morgan Stanley’s global private real estate investing platform. However, he will remain actively involved with MSREI and continue to serve on the investment committees of the platform’s private funds.

With Klopp’s promotion to real assets head, MSREI has reshuffled its senior leadership team. Olivier de Poulpiquet, who had been co-head with Klopp since 2010, will now serve as the business’ sole CEO and CIO. Meanwhile, Lauren Hochfelder Silverman will assume Klopp’s former post as head of the Americas and will oversee real estate investment activities in the region. Silverman, who joined the firm in 2000, was most recently co-head of US acquisitions.

Reporting to Silverman will be Kev Zoryan, who will act as head of the West Coast, and Scott Brown, who has been named global head of Prime, overseeing MSREI’s Prime global real estate core funds series. Both positions are newly created roles. Zoryan, who has been with the firm for 17 years, previously was co-head of US acquisitions along with Silverman, while Brown will continue to be portfolio manager of MSREI’s US core property fund.

The rest of MSREI’s senior executive team – Brian Niles, head of Europe, Toru Bando, head of Asia, global chief financial officer Peter Harned and global chief operating officer Christie Park – will remain unchanged.

In February, MSIM announced the restructuring of its investment teams across six groups: real assets, solutions and multi-asset, active fundamental equity, private equity and credit, global fixed income, and global liquidity. Under the restructuring, MSREI became part of MSIM’s real assets group, which also includes the global listed real assets and private infrastructure businesses.

According to internal memorandums seen by PERE, Klopp’s elevation to head of real assets was announced in late February, while the MSREI reorganization was effective last month.

MSIM had $406 billion in assets under management as of year-end 2015, while MSREI had $32 billion of AUM as of February 29, according to Morgan Stanley’s website.