Global property consultancy Knight Frank has today announced the launch of Knight Frank Capital Advisory (KFCA), an FCA-regulated entity providing a combined capital debt and equity sourcing service for clients in the U.K. and across Europe. The division comprises a recently formed Equity Advisory team to work in tandem with the firm’s existing Debt Advisory function, headed up by Lisa Attenborough.

With KFCA formally providing the ability to source both equity partners and debt capital for clients, Knight Frank now offers the full range of property consultancy, agency sales and capital raising products. KFCA will work closely with each sector and product team, enabling clients to depend on the firm at all stages of an asset, development or portfolio’s life cycle.

With the addition of the Equity Advisory team, KFCA has an enhanced capability to advise on a range of equity raising requirements. This includes programmatic capital to grow portfolios; one-off acquisitions; and corporate capital to fund strategies. KFCA can also support with sourcing capital to buy land; fund planning and construction; repositioning of existing assets; and rescue capital when assets become distressed.

KFCA will work with many of Knight Frank’s existing sector teams in the UK and across Europe – including Offices, Logistics, Residential, Hospitality, Healthcare, and Data Centres – to better service clients by inputting into strategies and arranging finance.

Birju Shah has been appointed Head of Knight Frank Capital Advisory. He joins Knight Frank with 25 years’ experience as a lender, investor and capital advisor.

Shah has previously held principal positions at Kleinwort Benson, JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank. More recently Shah was Head of Corporate Advisory at Cairn Capital, where he acted for large private equity funds, real estate companies and debt investors. Here he organised debt and equity capital for both property and corporate clients across Europe.

Shah is joined at Knight Frank by Emma Winning, who has been appointed as Partner in the Equity Advisory team. Winning has previously held roles at Deutsche Bank and Argent Related. She is an experienced senior leader who brings to the role her in-depth knowledge of risk management, structuring, asset management and project management. Winning was named Legal 500’s ‘In-House Real Estate Lawyer of the Year’ in 2020.

KFCA is currently staffed with a team of 10 and is scheduled to grow to 15 by the summer. In addition to the ongoing mandates of the Debt Advisory team, the Equity Advisory team is mandated on several equity raising transactions including for two large residential developments in London and the South East; a UK development debt fund; and a Warsaw PRS site; with pipeline transactions in the hospitality, logistics and shared living sectors.

James Mannix, Head of Residential Development & Investment, says: “The introduction of KFCA and Birju’s arrival, alongside Lisa Attenborough's debt team, significantly expand Knight Frank’s partnership-led approach to our client advice. In particular we can now help our clients with capital raising across debt and equity to complement the market leading real estate advice we are well known for.  We will continue to build and invest in this part of our business over the next few years.”

Andrew Sim, Managing Director, Knight Frank Europe added: “We’re thrilled to announce the launch of KFCA, allowing us to provide our clients with fully integrated capital markets’ solutions across all the traditional and emerging sectors. Birju is incredibly well-respected within his field, and we’re delighted he’s joined Knight Frank to help spearhead this exciting new team across the UK and Europe and linking in with our businesses around the world.”

Find out more about the team here: knightfrank.co.uk/capital-advisory