Real estate investment fund Henderson Park has hired former Goldman Sachs senior counsel Nick Russell as its first general counsel.
Russell spent his whole career in-house after training with Goldman Sachs, and was named senior counsel in 2008.
He spent 14 years with the investment fund before moving to Capula Investment in 2012 as a senior counsel and then joined Cross Ocean Partners as European general counsel in 2015. His replacement has yet to be announced.
Russell joins the London-based company a little over a year after it was launched by founding partner Nick Weber, who worked with Russell while the pair were at Goldman Sachs. Russell will be responsible for all of Henderson Park’s legal and regulatory aspects and will report directly to Weber.
Weber said: “I’m delighted to be working with Nick again at this important point in Henderson Park’s life cycle. Nick’s appointment further cements Henderson Park’s ambitions which we can only achieve with the best people.
“As we scale the business, our investors require best in class legal, regulatory and transaction execution capabilities in order to deliver on our investment strategy. We now look forward to leveraging Nick’s deep expertise as the business grows and we work our way through an exciting pipeline of identified opportunities.”
Henderson Park has completed a number of significant acquisitions in the last year, particularly in the hospitality sector, after closing deals for Le Méridien Étoile in Paris for £336m, The Ledra in Athens and both the Birmingham and London Hilton Metropole hotels for £500m.
In total, the company now boasts a portfolio worth over £1bn in assets.
Jones Day has acted for Henderson Park since its launch, with Chicago-based partner Robert Lee and London-based partners Anna Cartwright and Jonathan Bloom advising on a number of the company’s completed deals including those in Paris, Athens, London and Birmingham.
The real estate investment company launched with over $500m worth of capital invested by Stone Point Capital, Kuwait Investment Authority and Wafra Investment Advisory Group in September 2016.
