Credit Suisse placement team leaves for Greenhill

Bill Thompson, Walter Stackler, Pamela Wright and Fredrik Elwing have all left to join the New York-based bank. Greenhill said its expansion into the real estate capital raising business was a ‘natural step’.

The four senior members of Credit Suisse’s real estate placement agent group have left to join New York-based investment bank Greenhill & Co.

Bill Thompson, Walter Stackler, Pamela Wright and Fredrik Elwing will join Greenhill as managing directors to build the firm’s fundraising business.

The initial capital raising group we brought in outside the real estate area is off to a good start. With this expansion into the real estate area, we believe we have the potential to build a significant placement advisory business.

Greenhill chairman Robert Greenhill

Credit Suisse Real Estate Private Fund Group was led globally by Thompson from San Francisco. Stackler, Wright and Elwing were co-heads of the placement agent, operating from New York, San Francisco and London respectively. They will each remain in the same regions, Greenhill said in a statement, with the intention of adding “additional personnel in the near term in those and other offices”.

The move will be a blow to Credit Suisse’s recent vote as PERE's Global, North America and Europe placement agent of the year in this year's awards. Former global co-heads David Hodes and Doug Weill last July left the bank to create their own firm, Hodes Weill & Associates. Hodes, Weill and Thompson co-founded the placement agent at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, which merged with Credit Suisse in 2000 when the bank took over DLJ.

In appointing the four Credit Suisse executives, Greenhill said it was focused on real estate capital raising for funds, joint ventures and recapitalisations, as well as secondaries sales. Chairman Robert Greenhill said: “We decided two years ago that the fund placement advisory business was a natural step in the growth of our … model. The initial capital raising group we brought in outside the real estate area is off to a good start. With this expansion into the real estate area, we believe we have the potential to build a significant placement advisory business.”

In 2009, Credit Suisse REPFG raised $3.5 billion of real estate capital, including helping raise €1.3 billion for Orion Capital Manager’s Orion European Real Estate Fund III and $815 million for CLSA Capital Partners’ Fudo Capital II. The tally was less than the $9 billion raised in 2008, although approximately 50 percent of Credit Suisse REPFG’s activity last year came from investors who had been absent from real estate over the past few years.