Tishman Speyer Hires D&D Executive Jerry Park to Guide APAC Acquisitions

Tishman Speyer has made a key hire in its newly opened Seoul office, with the US developer and fund manager bringing aboard Jerry Hyunjae Park as senior director of acquisitions.

South Korean native Park has spent more than a decade in the real estate business, most recently as executive director for acquisitions and development at D&D Investment, a wholly owned subsidiary of Seoul-based developer SK D&D, which Park co-founded and helped grow into a top-tier real estate manager, Tishman Speyer said in release.

In his new role, Park is assigned with helping Tishman Speyer build out a diverse portfolio of assets in Asia Pacific. He reports to Graham Mackie, who joined the firm last June to spearhead the APAC expansion beyond Tishman’s long-established operations in China and India.

“Having spent the past year building out our Asia Pacific platform, we are now actively pursuing our growth strategy in the region,” Mackie said. “Given his deep roots and strong local relationships, along with his wealth of experience across a wide spectrum of investment vehicles and real estate sectors, Jerry is the right person to help us source and secure promising acquisition and new development opportunities.”

Ex-NPS Portfolio Manager

During his five years at D&D, Park structured, underwrote and managed the development of nine investments with a total value in excess of KRW 2 trillion ($1.5 billion). He was the first to raise foreign capital for a rental residential strategy in South Korea, Tishman Speyer said.

In SK D&D’s highest-profile deal of recent years, the builder joined with IGIS Asset Management in a KKR-led consortium to acquire the 23-storey Namsan Square office tower in the capital for KRW 500 billion ($420 million) in 2020.

From 2015 to 2018, Park served as a global portfolio manager for the National Pension Service of Korea, where he structured and executed investments worth KRW 3 trillion for the fund. These included direct investments in Hong Kong and Paris office properties, a retail mall in Shanghai and a medical office portfolio in the US, as well as managed fund investments in European residential and commercial properties.

An economics graduate of Korea University, Park also spent time as a fund manager at Mirae Asset Global Investment and as a senior associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers Korea.

Seeking Japan, Oz Talent

After the appointment of Park and the April hiring of Adrian Lee as a senior director in the Singapore office in April, Manhattan-based Tishman Speyer plans to add investment professionals to source acquisitions for its offices in Japan and Australia.

In May, Tishman Speyer teamed up with Hong Kong-based Raffles Family Office to launch an opportunistic Asia Pacific fund for ultra-high-net-worth individuals with a focus on investments in “new economy” real estate.

Dubbed the Tishman Speyer/Raffles Family Office APAC Opportunity Fund I, the vehicle plans to invest in value-add and opportunistic properties across the region with a focus on the living and logistics sectors, while also targeting credit strategies and distressed opportunities.