RREEF’s DaSilva joins Rockefeller Group

Peggy DaSilva has left RREEF and joined Rockefeller Group Investment Management (RGIM) as managing director of asset management.

In her new role, DaSilva will be charged with overseeing RGIM’s asset management team and maximizing the performance and value of the group’s portfolio of real estate assets that are owned and managed through commingled funds, separate accounts and joint ventures. The subsidiary currently has $800 million of third-party assets under management. She will report to Dennis Irvin, RGIM’s president and chief executive officer.

“Our strategic vision for RGIM is to create a leading global real estate investment management platform, and Peggy will be invaluable in formulating and implementing the business plan and asset management strategy for all acquisitions,” said Kevin Hackett, president and chief executive of Rockefeller Group International, in a statement. 

The New York-based commercial real estate firm declined to provide specifics, citing regulatory constraints, but said it is working closely with its Japanese parent company, Mitsubushi Estate Company, to build the business by utilizing Mitsubishi’s platform in Asia, Rockefeller’s platform in North America and Europa Capital’s platform in Europe. Europa Capital, a real estate fund management group investing across Europe, is a Rockefeller member.

Before joining Rockefeller, DaSilva served as a managing director at RREEF, most significantly as head of asset management in the Americas for its global real estate opportunity funds. Prior to Deutsche Bank’s acquisition of Bankers Trust in 1998, she worked in Bankers Trust’s real estate group, handling debt and equity investments in the Americas. Before that, she was responsible for real estate loan trading and syndication, as well as loan restructuring, at Citicorp Securities.

News of DaSilva’s move to Rockefeller comes on the heels of an announcement made by Deutsche Bank late last month that it was conducting a review of its €516 billon global asset management group, which could lead to a possible sale of RREEF, the division’s real estate investment management arm, and its other alternatives businesses.

DaSilva, however, told PERE that she made the decision to leave RREEF in August 2011, and that the recent announcement by Deutsche Bank had nothing with her move to Rockefeller.  “This was a good opportunity for me to join a real estate investment platform as it was beginning to invest and have the chance to help it grow into something larger,” she said.