Former Morgan Stanley Executive Dhanda Joins Real Estate Firm
December 08 2016 - 9:10AM
Dow Jones News
Black Creek Group LLC, a private-equity firm that focuses on
real estate, said it hired former Morgan Stanley executive Raj
Dhanda as president of its U.S. business.
Mr. Dhanda, 48 years old, spent 26 years at Morgan Stanley,
holding key jobs at both its investment-banking and
wealth-management businesses before leaving following an executive
shuffle earlier this year. He joins the Denver-based Black Creek as
investors are increasingly turning to real estate in their search
for assets that aren't as closely tied to the ebb and flow of the
stock and bond markets.
In a sign of increased appetite, private-equity firm Blackstone
Group LP in August laid out plans for a new nontraded real-estate
investment trust, and The Wall Street Journal recently reported
that Blackstone plans to sell shares of its portfolio of
single-family houses to the public.
"This is really about whether I can pivot to having an operating
role in an industry that's growing, and interesting," Mr. Dhanda
told The Wall Street Journal. "When I sat in the wealth management
business, we had an abundance of fixed income and equity products.
Within real estate, though, it wasn't as crowded a field."
Mr. Dhanda left Morgan Stanley after the departure of Gregory
Fleming, the firm's co-president, triggered a series of management
changes. Mr. Dhanda's father runs a commercial real-estate business
that has owned and developed properties in Cambridge, Mass.'s
historic Harvard Square.
At Black Creek, Mr. Dhanda will oversee the unit's distribution,
marketing, operations, product-development and legal
departments.
"Raj is a unique guy," said Evan Zucker, a principal and
co-founder of Black Creek. "He was running first debt capital
markets, and then all of capital markets, so he has an
institutional purview."
Founded in 2003, Black Creek manages more than $6 billion
through an array of real-estate investment trusts and other
vehicles. It manages money for pensions, endowments and other
institutions, and is eager to tap into increased demand for real
estate from retail investors.
Write to Justin Baer at justin.baer@wsj.com and Liz Hoffman at
liz.hoffman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 08, 2016 08:55 ET (13:55 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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