Brett Krause Succeeds ESR Chairman Jeffrey Perlman on Interim Basis

Industrial builder and fund manager ESR has a new chairman after tapping longtime board member Brett Krause to succeed Jeffrey Perlman.

Krause, an independent non-executive director of the Hong Kong-listed group backed by private equity firm Warburg Pincus, assumed the role of interim chairman on Monday, according to a stock filing. Perlman remains as a non-executive director of the group and has begun his new job as CEO of Manhattan-based Warburg Pincus.

ESR, which received a preliminary buyout proposal from a Starwood Capital-led consortium in May, plans to appoint an independent non-executive chairman by the first quarter of 2025.

“While the board and the nomination committee are in the process of identifying a suitable candidate to fulfil this role, Mr Krause’s appointment will serve as an interim arrangement pending the appointment of a full-time independent chairman,” ESR co-founder and co-CEO Jeffrey Shen said in the filing.

Venture Capital Vet

The 56-year-old Krause is a partner at Transcend Fund, a Swiss venture capital firm specialising in interactive entertainment. He previously served as chief investment officer at game maker FunPlus and currently chairs play-and-earn developer Xterio.

Before joining the ESR board in 2019, Krause was a managing partner at Shanghai-based venture firm PurpleSky Capital and held leadership roles at JPMorgan Chase in China and Citibank in Vietnam.

The foreign service graduate of Georgetown University later obtained a master’s degree in business administration from Columbia Business School at Columbia University.

The ESR board now comprises 11 members, including executive directors Shen and Stuart Gibson. Krause continues to chair the nominating committee and remuneration committee, while Simon James McDonald chairs the audit committee.

Ready to Deliver

ESR posted a net loss of $209 million for the first half of 2024 and said it would accelerate the expansion of its data centre platform as a key propellant of the group’s next growth phase.

Despite what it termed a challenging environment, the group boosted total assets under management to $154 billion, up 4.4 percent from a year earlier. Fee-related AUM rose 2.7 percent to $80 billion.

ESR made strides in streamlining and simplifying the business, such as the full integration of Aussie developer Logos, positioning the group to begin delivering results as the market turns more positive, said co-founders and co-CEOs Gibson and Shen.