BNY Mellon Creates New Real Estate Fund Services Unit Following Deutsche AWM Mandate

BNY Mellon has created a new Private Equity and Real Estate (PE&RE) Fund Services unit, following its $45 billion fund administration deal with Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management (Deutsche AWM) earlier this year.

To lead the new unit, the custodian bank has promoted Alan Flanagan to the newly created role of global head PE&RE Fund Services, based in Dublin. He will report to Frank La Salla, CEO of BNY Mellon’s Alternative Investment Services (AIS) business in New York.

Within the AIS business, PE&RE will comprise more than $100 billion in assets under administration and over 150 employees worldwide, after taking on 80 employees from the Deutsche AWM deal.

The deal with Deutsche AWM, the sixth largest real estate manager in the world, in February this year marked a pivotal jump for BNY Mellon into real estate fund administration, after reaching out to between 40-50 potential clients and being approached by about 20 others.

“We’re seeing vibrant growth opportunities in this space as investors pursue new strategies and increase allocations to private equity and real estate,” says La Salla.

“Alan was instrumental in orchestrating our signature agreement with Deutsche AWM. During his tenure as head of product he led many projects to better serve our hedge fund and PE clients, and I have every confidence he’ll do an outstanding job in this new role.

Flanagan was previously global head of product management for AIS. He will be succeeded in that role by Robert Chambers, who joins from hedge fund giant Balestra Capital where he was a managing director.

“Chambers brings a multi-faceted skillset in finance, investment strategy and the alternatives market. I look forward to working closely with him in building out the global capabilities for our alternative manager client base,” La Salla adds.