KKR & Co. Inc. (NYSE: KKR) has disclosed that Ian Williamson has been appointed as the managing director and the head of KKR Core Plus Real Estate in Europe. Williamson has served within the real estate industry in Europe for 19 years. Williamson joins KKR from BlackRock where he served as the Portfolio Manager.
He will be accountable to Guillaume Cassou who is the Head of European Real Estate at KKR. Williamson will supervise formation and head KKR Real Estate’s pan-European core plus focused strategy, which will concentrate on investing behind high-quality, significantly stabilized assets with long-term growth potential.
At BlackRock, Williamson supervised the fundraise of €550 million of third-party capital for BlackRock Eurozone Core Property Fund and established and ran the fund’s investment strategy. Williamson has served as a Regional Director and Fund Manager at LaSalle Investment Management before joining BlackRock in 2018.
Furthermore, Williamson stated that KKR has established a highly reliable cross-sector business in European real estate, which offers a very attractive platform from which to head a core plus focused strategies to fulfill the demand for high-quality real estate throughout the region.
Additionally, in June 2021, KKR conducted the final closing of KKR Real Estate Partners Europe II (REPE II). It is a US$2.2 billion fund devoted to value-add and devious real estate investments in Western Europe.