Capital Markets Advisory for UK and European Real Estate
Gainsboro Partners advises on real estate transactions, capital situations, and strategic opportunities across the UK and Continental Europe. We work in a focused, hands-on way, bringing principal-side judgement, market experience, and long-standing relationships to situations where discretion, speed, and commercial clarity matter.
We work selectively, engaging where experience, judgement, and targeted access can make a meaningful difference to outcome.
What We Do
- Acquisition and disposal advisory
- Off-market opportunity origination
- Capital partnering and strategic introductions
- Support on complex, transitional, or special situations
Why Gainsboro Partners
Our experience has been built on the principal side of the market – through banking, servicing, special servicing, underwriting, acquisitions, and real estate investment.
That matters because transactions are rarely just about marketing an asset. They are about understanding who is genuinely capable of acting, who is aligned on pricing and risk, and how to approach the right parties in a discreet and professional way.
Through more than 20 years of experience across the UK and Continental Europe, we have developed relationships with investors, lenders, servicers, advisers, and operating counterparties across the market. This allows us to identify and engage relevant parties with focus and judgement, particularly where confidentiality, complexity, or speed are important.
Track Record
Our experience includes senior responsibility across large and complex real estate and loan portfolios, including:
- More than €1 billion as Executive Director and Head of Primary Servicing and Special Servicing at Morgan Stanley Mortgage Servicing
- More than €30 billion as Head of Primary and Special Servicing at Hatfield Philips International
- More than €4 billion of property underwriting and acquisition responsibility across the UK and Continental Europe as COO at LRC
- More than 20 years of experience across banking, private equity investment, servicing, underwriting, and real estate transactions
Market context
Much of the opportunity in European real estate capital markets today arises from a material disconnect between official fund valuations and transaction prices — a gap that has widened since 2022 and that has made it increasingly difficult to close deals where stakeholders remain anchored to book value. Gainsboro Partners works with investors and fund managers who understand this, and who are prepared to transact at prices that reflect where the market actually is.
Confidential Discussions
We welcome confidential discussions with owners, investors, lenders, and operating partners seeking experienced, entrepreneurial, and principal-led capital markets advisory support.
Case study: recapitalisation of a closed-ended European real estate fund
A closed-ended European real estate fund with a net asset value in excess of €600 million had reached a point where its manager was seeking to provide liquidity to existing limited partners through a recapitalisation.
Gainsboro Partners acted as co-adviser on the transaction, working alongside a capital markets partner to identify and introduce a credible institutional investor as a potential incoming capital partner. Over a period of six months the prospective investor conducted detailed financial analysis and due diligence on the portfolio, culminating in a structured bid of €575 million.
The transaction did not complete. In the weeks that followed the bid, the fund’s official valuation was revised upward to €649 million — a gap of €74 million against the offer — and the existing limited partners were unwilling to accept a transaction at a price below the carrying value. The deal illustrated a dynamic that is increasingly common in European real estate: a material disconnect between transaction prices and official fund valuations, and the difficulty of bridging that gap when stakeholders are anchored to book value.