Simon Townsend will be responsible for driving the growth of Ellington Capital with a focus on identifying property development and investment opportunities in key markets in the region and internationally, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar.
DUBAI, UAE – Ellington Capital, a specialised real estate asset and fund management firm delivering 360-degree investment opportunities, announced the appointment of international property investment expert Simon Townsend as its Chief Executive Officer.
Simon Townsend will be responsible for driving the growth of Ellington Capital with a focus on identifying property development and investment opportunities in key markets in the region and internationally, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar, and delivering consistent and strong returns to investors from across the world. With its game-changing approach to ‘build to rent’ independently, Ellington Capital offers the opportunity for investors with large and smaller sized portfolios a diversified solution to maximise returns whilst mitigating risk.
Led by a team of investment professionals with over 45 years of investment experience in private equity and real estate and over 100 years' in real estate development, Ellington Capital will also address the aspirations of millennials, who opt for rental living rather than home ownership.
Ellington Capital will shortly be launching the Ellington Opportunities Fund I, the first real estate fund in the Middle East to offer investors access to developer project returns, with capital raising about to commence. It limits risks by building on its successful track record of best-in-class corporate governance and execution, both in the region and globally.
Robert Booth, Executive Chairman, Ellington Capital, said: “The launch of Ellington Capital follows a thorough evaluation of the market potential for property investments in the region where we identified an industry ‘white space’ to offer tangible value propositions for investors. Through diligent fund management and strong property development and management expertise, Ellington Capital will deliver focused returns for investors. With his deep industry expertise, Simon Townsend will champion the roll out and growth of the firm in the region and beyond.”
Simon Townsend said: “The differentiating strength of Ellington Capital is its vision to support investors from across the world, irrespective of the size of their investment portfolio, to benefit from the positive prospects in the Middle East and North Africa region’s property sector. By developing world-class assets and managing their rental portfolio, we are committed to creating long-term value for our investors. The potential offered by independent real estate funds is still significant in the region and we are providing investors a bespoke fund with very clear underlying fundamentals targeting a specific market segment. The focus is to provide a transparent independent fund with world-class procedures to ensure every step from land acquisition through investment divestment is aligned with best practices and third-party audit verification.”
A specialised asset management firm launched by Ellington Properties, Dubai’s design-led property developer, Ellington Capital manages assets, drives property investment deals, advises on financial products and extends advisory on credit services, among others.
Benchmarking against the world’s best by providing global investors access to bespoke regional opportunities, Ellington Capital is building in-house capabilities to offer the full spectrum of fund management services. Among key targets is to design and build high quality apartments targeting multi-family rental markets in key markets, which will deliver assured returns for investors.
Simon Townsend started his career in the UK where he was responsible for private client and family office real estate investment portfolios with a specific focus on valuation, asset management and portfolio optimisation. He was involved in CBRE’s Middle East business from the outset focusing on the advisory, consulting, valuation and investment service lines. He has also worked at investment and Islamic investment banks in the Middle East region leading the real estate advisory and transaction teams completing more than US$800M of real estate transactions internationally including Europe, the United States, Asia, the Middle East and Russia.
Simon has a BSc (Hons) in Urban Land Economics from Sheffield Hallam University in the UK, is a Fellow of the RICS and has post graduate diplomas from Cornell University in Real Estate Investment as well as Hospitality Investment and Asset Management.
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