Simon Treacy Stepping Down as CapitaLand Rejigs Private Funds Team

Simon Treacy is leaving his role leading CapitaLand Investment’s private real estate fund business after three years, as the Singapore government-linked company rolls out a unified real assets platform to manage non-listed vehicles.

Following his departure from his role as CEO for private equity real estate on 31 October, Treacy will continue to act as a senior advisor to CapitaLand Investment (CLI) group CEO Lee Chee Koon, where he is expected to provide counsel to the private equity team on capital raising and investments.

CLI is combining its existing real estate and alternative assets units into a unified division dubbed Private Equity Real Assets (PERA), with Lee set to be chief executive of the merged unit, alongside his group leadership role. CLI group chief operating officer Andrew Lim will oversee capital raising and product development for the private capital markets team.

“We thank Simon for his contributions to CLI and are pleased that he has agreed to stay on as a Senior Advisor and provide ongoing guidance to our private equity team,” Lee said in a statement.

Leadership Reshuffle

In the same document CapitaLand Investment unveiled two more senior moves including former CapitaLand Development executive Alan Tan coming on board as a managing director heading capital raising for its private capital markets division. Tan will also serve as managing director for special projects with the Private Equity Real Assets team.

Having earlier served with Temasek Holdings, Chinese asset manager CreditEase and Morgan Stanley, Tan has been with the privately held development division of CapitaLand Group since 2022 and has served most recently as head of strategic partnerships.

With digital infrastructure playing a larger role in the real asset investment universe CLI also announced that Kenny Khow has been appointed managing director for global data centre with effect from 1 October.

Khow had served as chief executive officer with YTL Data Centres, the digital infrastructure unit of Malaysian energy generation giant YTL Group from 2021 through the end of last year per his LinkedIn profile and earlier worked with ESR’s data centre division after nearly five years with Keppel Data Centres in Singapore.

CLI expects the new appointments to work together with Gabriel Fong, who had joined CLI earlier as a managing director heading its special opportunities group and Vinamra Srivastava who is now the company’s chief sustainability and sustainable investments officer.

Also new to the team is Haslam Preeston who joined in early June as chief people and culture officer on 3 June 2024.

Treacy had joined CLI in October 2021 after having earlier served as global real estate chief investment office and head of US equities with BlackRock. During his time at CLI he led the growth of the company’s private equity real estate business and oversaw private capital management.

Having signed on at Capitaland at the same time as former Brookfield executive Patrick Boocock, who served as head of CapitaLand Investment’s private equity alternative assets division, the duo became two of few non-Singaporeans holding senior leadership positions with the Temasek Holdings controlled company.

Boocock left CLI in December of last year and now serves as group chief financial officer with Australian energy firm Ausgrid in Sydney.

Expansion Plans Continue

CLI presented the appointments as part of an ongoing process to strengthen its leadership team and accelerate the growth of the company’s private funds business, particularly in the areas of capital raising, data centres, special situations and renewables.

“We will continue to expand CLI’s leadership bench strength with external hires as we grow our senior leadership talent from within,” Lee said. “The latest senior leadership appointments we have made will bolster CLI’s capabilities to drive key strategic initiatives in our funds platforms.”

Lee also vowed to expand CLI’s geographical footprint as the company works toward achieving its target of having S$200 billion ($153.3 billion) in funds under management by 2028.

Note: An image caption in an earlier version of this story identified Alan Tan as David Tan. Mingtiandi regrets the error.