Is London Open? Financing & Available Capital In An Uncertain Environment

Paul Oberschneider is the Founder and CEO of Hilltop Credit Partners. Paul has 30-years of experience in real estate transactions, asset management and property finance, having transacted over £1bn across the UK and Europe. Hilltop is an alternative specialist lender, providing loans to the UK’s SME housebuilders.

Chris Kanwei is the founder of RealCorp Capital, an independent investment and corporate finance advisory firm based in London. He has managed and advised on real estate investments in excess of £10 billion across EMEA. Chris has held senior roles in commercial real estate finance across major financial institutions including Aviva, Morgan Stanley, AIB. He has extensive experience in real estate debt investments, loan portfolio sales, non-performing loan (NPL) advisory and underwriting, portfolio management and loan workout, loan servicing platforms, real estate development finance, and corporate & commercial banking. Chris is a graduate of mechanical engineering, a qualified accountant, corporate finance specialist, and chartered banker. He is a member of several professional bodies including CIMA UK, CPA (Australia), RICS UK, Chartered Institute for Securities and Investments, UK, and The Chartered Banker Institute (UK). He is also a regular speaker at major European investment forums.

Lorna is an established real estate professional with over 20 years’ experience investing, structuring and managing UK real estate investments in both debt and equity and across a range of real estate asset classes. Prior to joining Delancey, Lorna held senior roles in Blackstone, Legal & General Investment Management and RBS. Having recently joined Delancey in early 2020, Lorna is responsible for Capital Markets, which includes underwriting and evaluating new and existing investments, capital raising and sourcing and providing financing for real estate investments on behalf of Delancey clients as well as overseeing all lending relationships.

Alexandra Lanni is the Head of Investments EMEA of the Credit Strategies business, the CBRE Global Investors debt business in Europe. In this capacity she oversees the investment policy, transactions and strategy for the investments team, as well as capital deployment, and investor relations. She is also involved in strategic management of the Fund portfolio and managing the fund teams. Miss. Lanni joined CBRE Global Investors at the end of 2019 when Laxfield Capital was acquired by CBRE Group and was merged with the Investment Management business, CBRE Global Investors, in Europe. At Laxfield Capital she was Director and Member of the Board with oversight of all transaction activity, successfully executing over GBP 3.5 billion of transactions and the underwriting standards within the business. During her time at Laxfield Asset Management she also established - together with other Board Members, the debt advisory business in 2015 which has been retained to advise on more than GBP 2 billion of transactions. Earlier in her career, Miss. Lanni work from 2008 until 2011 with Lloyds Bank Real Estate Division as part of the restructuring team, where she was in the lead for loan sales and strategic projects. A special project she was involved in was the integration of systems and processes in the CRE division following Lloyds acquisition of Halifax Bank of Scotland. Miss. Lanni started her career with PWC in their Audit & Advisory Group, with the responsibility for institutional clients. Miss. Lanni earned a MA in Economics from the Glasgow University and is qualified as a Chartered Accountant.

The Founder and CEO of The Valesco Group is Mr. Shiraz Jiwa, who has a distinguished track record spanning 2 decades. Mr. Jiwa has successfully closed and managed over €5 billion of European commercial real estate investments, delivering strong target-exceeding returns to sovereigns, institutions and family offices. Prior to founding Valesco, Mr. Jiwa was managing director and head of real estate investments at AGC Equity Partners, a sovereign backed alternative asset investment firm. He closed and managed numerous European real estate investments across core/core+, complex restructuring, development and special situations during his tenure. Previously, Mr. Jiwa was a partner and portfolio manager at the Rainbow Global High Yield Fund. His areas of focus were special situations, real estate, distressed debt and derivatives. Mr. Jiwa directed investment strategy and executed transactions across the capital structure. Prior to this, Mr. Jiwa was at Morgan Stanley where his expertise was utilised to develop, analyse, structure and execute portfolio optimisation and yield enhancement strategies and solutions. Mr. Jiwa executed several significant capital markets as well as securities division transactions. Mr. Jiwa started his career as part of the credit derivatives structuring and trading team at Bear Stearns. Mr. Jiwa has developed an expertise across all major asset classes, notably in real estate, real estate private equity, complex restructurings and special situations. Mr. Jiwa received a B.Sc. Joint Honours in Mathematics with Management from Imperial College London.

John is Commercial Director for the Commercial Real Estate team at Aldermore. He is responsible for developing new propositions and enhancing the customer journey to meet growing demand. John has 30 years’ experience in the industry having previously worked in a number of national roles at Bank of Scotland, CYBG and NAB.

Patrick Williams is a partner in Fried Frank's European Real Estate Group, resident in London. Mr. Williams has wide transactional experience on commercial real estate matters, including large scale mixed-use developments and pre-letting arrangements, joint venture agreements, complex real estate investment transactions and real estate finance. He acts for a broad mix of clients, including property investment companies (including those on the FTSE100), global real estate fund managers, banks, infrastructure development and land promoter specialists, ultra high-net-worth individuals and family offices, and a range of Asian sovereign wealth funds and state-owned enterprises. Prior to joining Fried Frank, Mr. Williams was a partner at a large international law firm.