Email: jfrenson@leadcrestcap.com
Jean-François Renson is Director of Finance at LeadCrest Capital Partners. Mr. Renson is responsible for managing all accounting and finance processes at LeadCrest.
Prior to joining LeadCrest in 2021, Mr. Renson was Senior Manager, Accounting & Tax, at Colony Capital (NYSE:CLNY), a global real estate and investment management firm.
Before joining Colony Capital in 2018, Mr. Renson spent 10 years with PwC in Luxembourg where he was part of the accounting and tax department working with various clients across a diverse range of sectors.
Mr. Renson obtained his qualification as Luxembourg Certified Chartered Accountant in 2013.
Mr. Renson holds a Master of Business Administration from HEC-University of Liège (Belgium) and Bachelor’s degree in Accounting (specializing in taxation) from the Sainte-Marie Institute (Belgium).
Email: mbernal@leadcrestcap.com
Mobile: +352 621 512 927
Mark Bernal is a Managing Director and Head of Asset Management at LeadCrest Capital Partners.
Prior to joining LeadCrest, Mr. Bernal was a Senior Vice President at Colony Capital (NYSE:CLNY) based out of New York City. He has diverse institutional experience including asset management, origination and underwriting. He has experience managing and structuring debt and equity investments including sale-leaseback transactions.
From 2014 to 2017, Mr. Bernal was based in Colony Capital’s Luxembourg office; formerly NorthStar Asset Management Group (NYSE:NSAM) where he managed assets for NorthStar Realty Europe Corp (NYSE:NRE), a European focused real estate company with high quality office properties in Germany, the United Kingdom and France.
Prior to joining Colony in 2009, Mr. Bernal was a Director at GE Capital Real Estate. From 2007 to 2009, Mr. Bernal was based in GE’s Connecticut office where he sourced large secondary debt investments.
From 2003 to 2007, Mr. Bernal was based in GE’s London office where he focused on originating healthcare real estate investments structured as sale-leasebacks in the UK and Germany.
From 2001 to 2003, Mr. Bernal was based in GE’s Dallas office where he originated debt secured by assisted and independent living homes. Mr. Bernal joined GE in 1994, when he was responsible for workouts and restructuring of debt and underwriting.
Mr. Bernal also spent 6 years at Bank One Corporation responsible for workouts and restructuring of commercial real estate loans. Mr. Bernal received his Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Texas at San Antonio (United States).
Email: jmabreu@leadcrestcap.com
Mobile: +44 75 76 865 16
José Maria de Abreu is a Vice President, Head of Investments for Southern Europe and Poland at LeadCrest Capital Partners. He is responsible for sourcing and executing sale-leaseback and build-to-suit investments with a particular focus on those regions.
Prior to joining LeadCrest in 2020, Mr. de Abreu was an Analyst at Cross Ocean Partners, a global credit investment platform where he focused on stressed and distressed opportunities within Southern Europe. He was responsible for sourcing, underwriting, and managing investments for a wide range of sectors (including Real Estate), investing in both debt and equity.
Priot to that, Mr. de Abreu spent 2 years at Candlewick Asset Management, an investment vehicle co-owned by Goldman Sachs’ Special Situations Group and TPG’s Special Situations Partners focusing on distressed mid-market private equity investments. He was an Associate on the investment team where he was responsible for several portfolio companies across a variety of sectors.
Mr. de Abreu started his career at Morgan Stanley where he spent 2 years in the Investment Banking Division within the Consumer / Retail team having worked on a variety of M&A and equity transactions globally.
Mr. de Abreu holds a Master of Science in Finance from Imperial College London (United Kingdom) and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Catholic University (Portugal).
Email: adessart@leadcrestcap.com
Alice Dessart is a Managing Director and Head of Tax and Structuring at LeadCrest Capital Partners. Mrs. Dessart is responsible for tax management, structuring and oversight of all operations and investment activities at LeadCrest.
Prior to joining LeadCrest in 2020, Mrs. Dessart was the Head of Tax Europe at Colony Capital (NYSE:CLNY), a global real estate and investment management firm. Prior to its merger with Colony Capital in 2017, she held the position of Head of Tax Europe at NorthStar Asset Management Group (NYSE:NSAM).
Prior to that, Mrs. Dessart spent 13 years with PwC in Luxembourg and in Australia where she was advising real estate funds, private equity groups and multinational companies on structuring acquisition, financing, and disposal strategies.
Mrs. Dessart is a member of the Tax Committee of the European Association for Investors in Non-Listed Real Estate Vehicles (INREV) since February 2018.
Mrs. Dessart holds a Master’s degree in Business and Finance from HEC Liège (Belgium) and a Master’s degree in Taxation from the University of Liège (Belgium).
Email: gasmar@leadcrestcap.com
Tel: +33 1 88 40 16 94
Mobile: +33 7 85 17 04 01
Georges Asmar is the President, Managing Director and Portfolio Manager of LeadCrest Capital Partners.
Prior to founding LeadCrest in 2019, Mr. Asmar was based in New York City where he set up and implemented the sale-leaseback strategy within global real estate firm Colony Capital (NYSE:CLNY). As the portfolio manager leading the global net lease strategy, Mr. Asmar was responsible for (1) investments, (2) accounting & treasury, (3) tax, (4) property management, (5) asset management and (6) investor relations.
At Colony Capital, he was responsible for originating over US$6.9 billion across 80 separate transactions. From those active prospects, he closed on 8 separate transactions totalling 15% of the original amount or circa US$1.0 billion in asset value and circa US$400 million of equity invested.
Prior to joining Colony Capital in 2013, Mr. Asmar worked at W. P. Carey as a Director. Mr. Asmar also spent 8 years in private equity and investment banking in London (HSBC/JPMorgan), where he was involved in merger & acquisitions (buy and sell-sides), equity capital markets and debt capital markets transactions, mainly in the infrastructure, real estate, renewable energy and telecom sectors.
Mr. Asmar received a Master of Science in Management from EM Lyon Business School (France) and a Master of Business Administration with Honors from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (United States).
Email: jfbost@leadcrestcap.com
Tel: +33 1 88 40 16 95
Mobile: +33 6 37 09 59 79
Jean-François Bost is a Vice President, Head of Investments for France and Benelux at LeadCrest Capital Partners. He is responsible for sourcing and executing sale-leaseback and build-to-suit investments with a particular focus on that region.
Prior to joining LeadCrest in 2019, Mr. Bost worked for over 5 years at Oak Investment Management Group in London where he was responsible for executing opportunistic and core equity and debt transactions across various asset classes. During his tenure he closed on numerous equity transactions and related loans, and took part in several lease negotiations.
Prior to that, Mr. Bost worked at Crédit Agricole Indosuez in the private banking team as a Summer Analyst where his primary responsibilities included financial reporting and portfolio analysis.
Mr. Bost received a Bachelor of Science in Engineering and Business Studies from the University of Warwick (United Kingdom).
Nicole Waibel is a Managing Director at Crescent Capital’s European Direct Lending Team. Prior to joining Crescent in 2013 Ms. Waibel was a partner at Indigo Capital, a leading European specialist lending fund which she had joined in 2001. Ms. Waibel previously worked for BNP Paribas in Media & Telecom finance in Paris and Frankfurt (1999-2001). She started her career at Arthur Andersen in transaction support services in Frankfurt.
Ms. Waibel has a Masters degree in Economics and completed her studies at Münster University and Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Trevor Bond served as President and Chief Executive Officer of W.P. Carey Inc., a publicly traded REIT and Investment Manager listed on the New York Stock Exchange, from July 2010 to February 2016. He was also a member of the board and investment committee at W.P. Carey from 2007 until 2016. Before joining W.P Carey, Trevor Bond spent over nine years as a Director at Credit Suisse, where he co-founded the Real Estate Equity Group.
W.P Carey was the first active investor in sale leaseback (Net Lease) transactions in the US, effectively creating the asset class in the 1980s, and today is the second largest sale leaseback investor in the US with a market capitalisation of $13.3 billion.
During his tenure as CEO, Trevor Bond led W.P. Carey’s transformation from a family business into a global company, leading the group’s expansion into Europe, Asia and Africa. This increased the company’s value from $1.5 bn to $11.5bn and saw W.P Carey gain a presence in 21 countries. Mr Bond also oversaw the company’s diversification into sectors such as hotels and self-storage, as well as traditional corporate sale leaseback.
Mr. Stuart Koenig was a Senior Partner and COO of Ares’ $10 billion Real Estate Division. Mr. Koenig serves on Ares’ Real Estate Executive Committee and was the Chairman of Ares’ Real Estate Group’s U.S. Equity, Europe/India Equity, and Real Estate Debt Investment Committees. He was also a member of the firm-wide Risk Committee. Mr. Koenig joined Ares in July 2013 from Area Property Partners (formerly Apollo Real Estate Advisors), where he was the CFO, CAO and Senior Partner from 1995 to 2013. Before its sale to Ares, Area was a $6 billion AUM highly successful real estate private equity firm offering closed and open-ended investment funds. Mr. Koenig’s functional responsibility covered finance, audit, tax compliance and tax structuring. He helped scale the business to accommodate the growth of the firm from $500 million to $6 billion of AUM including its expansion to Europe. Mr. Koenig participated in significant transactions notable of which is the $1.3 billion construction loan for the development of the Time Warner Center in NYC. He served on all fund investment committees focused on ensuring both appropriate risk reward parameters were addressed and fiduciary obligations to investors were satisfied.
Mr. Koenig serves as Lead Independent Director for Emeritus Corporation and Treasurer of a condo board in New York. Mr. Koenig graduated from Binghamton University with a BA in English and holds an MBA in accounting from Baruch College.
Mr. Reginald Winssinger is the Founder and Chairman of National Portfolio, Inc. Mr. Winssinger manages multiple companies with real estate investments primarily in Arizona, California and Texas. Mr. Winssinger has worked at Winssinger family real estate company in Belgium before coming to the United States in 1979 to expand their investment activity. He formed Horizon Real Estate Group, Inc., doing business as NAI Horizon in Phoenix, Arizona, a full-service real estate firm providing brokerage, property management, construction management and real estate consulting services. He serves as a Director of Pierce-Eislen, Inc. and is the Honorary Consul of Belgium to Arizona. Mr. Winssinger served as an Independent Director of W. P. Carey Inc. since 1998 until June 15, 2017.
He attended the Sorbonne and holds a B.S. in Geography from the University of California at Berkeley and received a degree in Appraisal and Survey in Belgium.
Olivier Chatain holds a diploma from ESSEC, an MSc from the University of Paris I-Panthéon Sorbonne, an MSc and a PhD from INSEAD.
His main research focus is the formal and value-based foundations of strategy with specific applications to buyer-supplier relationships and markets for strategic resources. His latest publication “How Do Strategic Factor Markets Respond to Rivalry in the Product Market?”, forthcoming at Strategic Management Journal, examines how rivalry in the product market shapes competitive interactions and supply in the market for strategic resources. His research has been published in the Academy of Management Review, Management Science and the Strategic Management Journal.
Prior to joining HEC Paris, Olivier served on the faculty at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
At HEC Paris, Olivier teaches competitive strategy to MBA, MSc and PhD students. Olivier serves as an editorial review board member of the Strategic Management Journal and Strategy Science and is also a Senior Fellow at the Mack Institute for Innovation Management at the Wharton School. His dissertation received the AOM’s Business Policy and Strategy division Outstanding Dissertation Award.