Hilco Real Estate Finance (HREF) has appointed Duncan Pearson as senior business development consultant.

Pearson (pictured) has a background in banking and real estate. This includes 26 years of European real estate industry experience, focussed on both equity investing and debt structures throughout the full capital stack, asset management, property recoveries and restructuring.

He is a former executive director at PGIM Real Estate in London, and led origination for the firm’s various real estate investment strategies. Prior to this, he held senior positions at Mitre Capital Partners (Santander), ING, KBC, AIBC, Berlinhyp and Currie & Brown.

Brad Altberger, CEO and co-founder of HREF, said: “We are delighted to welcome Duncan to the team. With his deep experience in the real estate lending sector, he will significantly enhance our ability to identify and transact across a wide variety of lending opportunities.

“In particular, we are seeing a significant uptick in demand for loans to finance development exits and given the breadth of Duncan’s relationships with developers, we expect to materially increase our lending activities in this segment.”

Pearson added: “I am impressed with Hilco’s compelling value proposition and the speed and efficiency in which the team is able to craft lending solutions across sectors and geographies.

“Given its entrepreneurial spirit and achievements to date, I believe this an exciting time to join the firm and very much look forward to working with Brad and the entire team to grow Hilco’s lending activities.”