C&W secures real estate finance team from Ernst & Young

12 May, 2007, London

Cushman & Wakefield has appointed a six-strong real estate finance team from Ernst & Young led by executive director, Paul Vernham. The team joins Cushman & Wakefield's successful Occupier Strategy team which specialises in strategic real estate solutions for corporate occupiers. This move brings together the undisputed market leaders in this field and creates an enlarged London-based Occupier Strategy team within Cushman & Wakefield's Capital Markets division totalling 18 professionals. The team will be jointly led by existing team head Matthew Stone, together with Paul Vernham.

Paul Vernham, 46 and a chartered accountant, will join Cushman & Wakefield as a partner in Autumn 2007 following a successful 18-year career specialising in the real estate sector at Ernst & Young. Paul has played a major role in delivering innovative strategic solutions for corporate occupiers. Examples of projects include Abbey National's £472 million real estate outsourcing to Mapeley in 2000, Tesco's £675 million structured joint venture sale and leaseback to Topland in 2004 and Rank's 2006 asset and liability transaction which eliminated in excess of £125 million of surplus leasehold liabilities.

Other members of Ernst & Young's Real Estate Finance team joining Cushman & Wakefield include; Kevin Vickers who joins as associate partner and Ari Boyd, Will Elgood, Richard Freeth and Jonathan Furnival.

Cushman & Wakefield's Occupier Strategy team is currently led by Matthew Stone who joined the firm from Nelson Bakewell with his 4-strong corporate consulting team in 2004. The team has been responsible for some of the most significant corporate occupier real estate deals in UK and continental Europe in recent years, including the sale of 2 million sq ft of properties for Sony across six European Countries and the asset and liability transaction for The Royal Mail Group which disposed of over 400 properties in a single corporate transaction.

Bryan Laxton, CEO of UK Capital Markets at Cushman & Wakefield, said: "Paul is recognised as a leading figure in the sector and his track record with clients is second to none. With Ernst & Young being our main competition in this field, these appointments are a real coup for Cushman & Wakefield which consolidates our position as the leading global occupier strategy team in real estate sector."

Paul Vernham, who is joining Cushman & Wakefield as joint head of Occupier Strategy said: "This is an exciting opportunity to be forming the best-in-class global occupier strategy team with contacts and expertise across the full spectrum of real estate and finance in a market where we anticipate increasingly high levels of demand from corporates requiring strategic real estate advice."

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