San Francisco- and New York-based Liquid Realty Partners today announced that Josh Cleveland has joined the firm as director in charge of business development.
Cleveland joins from Capital Dynamics, an asset management firm headquartered in Zug, Switzerland with additional offices in New York. Cleveland was a vice president at Capital Dynamics.
At Capital Dynamics, Cleveland was instrumental in winning a major mandate from the Washington State Investment Board, beating out veteran La Jolla, California consultant Pacific Corporate Group.
Liquid Realty was founded by Scott Landress, the former global head of real estate investment banking at Bank of America. Last year the firm closed a $150 million fund that will buy secondary interests in private equity real estate funds.
In related news, Liquid Realty recently nabbed Andrew Jensen, the former senior controller of San Francisco middle-market buyout firm Gryphon Investors, as director of finance.
Analysts of the private equity real estate market estimate that roughly $160 billion has been raised for these funds, and that the asset class is growing by roughly $15 billion to $18 billion per year. But to date the secondary activity in this market has been far below that of other markets, including that found in traditional private equity.
In July, Capital Dynamics, founded by former Partners Group partner Thomas Kubr, agreed to acquire Westport Private Equity, the UK fund of funds, from hedge fund giant Man Group. The acquisition will create a private equity-focused asset manager with $5.25 billion of capital under management, assuming all existing clients stay with the merged entity.