Charles Blackburn Quits Deutsche Bank For Oaktree

13 April 2015 – CoStar Finance

Charles Blackburn, head of Deutsche Bank’s EMEA commercial real estate special situations group, has quit the investment bank after nearly 10 years and is expected to join Oaktree Capital Management later in the summer, CoStar News has learned.

Blackburn is thought to be taking up a senior role continuing a remit for distressed real estate debt and equity investments at the US private equity firm, having already left Deutsche Bank.

Earlier this morning, CoStar News revealed that Oaktree has moved to exclusive negotiations to acquire FMS Wertmanagement’s Project Gaudi CRE loan portfolio for a price thought to be just north of €500m.

At the turn of the year, Blackburn’s Deutsche Bank team won NAMA’s €287m Project Boyne, loans secured by property developer Willie Smyth, paying around €95m, and just before Christmas the team also won a €234m tranche of the Project Kaplan NPL from Sareb.

The most significant NPL win of last year by Blackburn’s team was the acquisition of around €1.5bn in tranches from IBRC’s giant €9.3bn Project Stone NPL, acquiring the two largest tranches by nominal balance and the highest quality of assets in the loan portfolio.

Deutsche Bank also won tranches of IBRC’s Project Quartz and NAMA’s Project Spring.

Blackburn joined Deutsche Bank in September 2005, prior to which he spent three years at O’Connor Capital Partners.

All parties declined to comment.

Original story: CoStar Finance (by James Wallace)

Edited by: Carmel Drake