'Question time' panel: Where does the smart money go?

Kirsty Corkum has over 25 years' experience in the real estate sector and has been a partner within the real estate team at Fladgate since 2021. Kirsty works on complex developments, prelettings and investments. She provides legal advice to developers, investors, landlords and tenants of UK property. She has also worked extensively on high value, mixed use, leisure/hotel and office urban development projects.

Mr. Breslauer founded Patron Capital in 1999 and is the Managing Partner of the Patron Capital Funds (Patron Capital Captive Fund, Funds I–VII). Total capital under management represents approximately €5.3 billion from leading U.S. and European institutions, endowments, pension funds and family offices. The Patron Funds primarily focus on investments in companies and assets associated with property and property related activities in the United Kingdom and Western Europe. Patron, with 60 people is based in London with offices in Barcelona, Lisbon and Luxembourg with asset management platforms across Europe. Patron’s portfolios now include over 90 million square feet of different types of properties.

Mr. Breslauer is active in many charities with current and previous roles including acting as Chairman and Trustee of the PTI (formerly the Prince’s Teaching Institute), Vice Patron and lead Corporate Donor for the Royal Marines Charity, Director on the Advisory Board for the Rustandy Centre/Social Enterprise Initiative of Chicago Booth, Member of the Chicago Booth Global Leaders Group and Senior Patron across multiple charities.

Samantha McClary has been a journalist for more than two decades and has spent the last 20 years focused on real estate journalism, working her way up from junior report at EG to editor. She is passionate about the industry and the impact that it has not just on the global economy, but on people and the planet too.

Mr. Benjamin is a Partner and Co-Head of the Real Estate Group at Ares, a leading alternative asset manager with more than $500 billion of assets under management. He serves on the Ares Executive Management Committee. Mr. Benjamin also serves as a Director and Chairman of both the Ares Commercial Real Estate Corporation Board of Directors and the Ares Commercial Real Estate Investment Trust. Mr. Benjamin joined Ares in July 2013 from AREA Property Partners, where he was a Senior Partner from 1995 to 2013. Mr. Benjamin joined AREA Property Partners in 1995 from Bankers Trust Corp, where he was a Vice President from 1986 to 1995. He is a Trustee of Impetus, a UK based charity focused on improving access to education and employment for disadvantaged youth and Chairman of the London School of Jewish Studies. Mr. Benjamin graduated from Harvard with a Bachelor of Arts degree in social studies and holds a Master of Business Administration degree from University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School.

Gadi Jay is a Senior Managing Director in the Real Estate group and responsible for European Real Estate Capital Markets, based in London. Since joining the firm in 2014, Mr. Jay has been involved in the financing of all European real estate investments including asset, stock and portfolio-level financings and in obtaining fund-level leverage utilized by Blackstone’s European real estate investment vehicles. Before joining Blackstone, Mr. Jay spent 3 years at HSBC Global Banking & Markets where he was a Vice President based in London, focusing on financing and debt advisory mandates across Europe. Prior to that Mr. Jay spent 2 years at HSBC Private Bank in New York and London. Mr. Jay graduated from City University with an LLB (Honors) in Law and Property Valuation.

Franco has over 40 years experience in Commercial property investment. He founded Franc Warwick at the age of 25 along with his partner Dennis Warwick. The Franc Warwick business went on to become the market leading investment agency and was the forerunner for the niche practice model. Franco is active in all sectors of the UK property market having transacted countless large and complicated deals for public companies, Institutions, Private Equity funds and HNWs. He sold Franc Warwick to CBRE in 2012 and remains as a Consultant as well as advising numerous Family Offices on investment strategy.