EUROPE - Deutsche Asset Management has hired John Hammond from Schroders as head of European real estate securities - a new business area for the group’s London property division.

The hire, says Deutsche, also anticipates the firm moving into the UK REIT (PIF) market, pending proposed legislation by the UK government.

Earlier this week J P Morgan Fleming Asset Management hired Deutsche’s head of European real estate research Nick Tyrell as head of European research and strategy for its real estate business.

Hammond was formerly a real estate equities fund manager and head of property strategy at Schroders. Reporting to Bill Hughes, chief executive of DeAM’s UK property team, he will be joined shortly at Deutsche by a dedicated European real estate analyst who has yet to be named.

Deutsche in London says the creation of the new division under Hammond opens up opportunities including segregated and pooled fund investment in European real estate securities.

It will also allow DB Real Estate, the group’s global property arm, to structure a deeper global real estate securities product in collaboration with teams from RREEF in the US and DB Real Estate Australia.

A spokesperson at Deutsche in London explained: “John will do two things. One will be to assist in making our global real-estate securities offering even more global than it is at the moment. Also we don’t have a European securities capability in the UK at the moment. The stock picking is done elsewhere, but now we will have someone on the ground for this.

“Secondly he is going to be able to develop a European real estate investment trust (REIT) offering when the regulation has been put in place by the government following on from the announcement in the budget this year. We want to do this when the time comes.”

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