Michael Zerda

Michael Zerda serves as the Co-CIO for Europe, and is Head of European Debt & Value-Add Strategies, responsible for LaSalle’s market leading debt platform and its value-add equity strategies in Europe.

Michael has 22 years’ experience investing in debt and equity opportunities in Europe and the US, across a wide variety of real estate asset classes. Since 2010, he has been responsible for transactions totaling over $21 billion in gross loan commitments and over $8 billion in net equity contributions across 110 individual transactions in major Western European markets spanning senior debt, mezzanine debt, corporate debt, development finance, and equity joint ventures.

Michael was most recently Head of Europe for Blackstone Real Estate Debt Strategies, where he oversaw the growth of one Europe’s most active non-bank lending platforms and led various notable initiatives, including providing a €1.2B whole loan for Henderson Park’s purchase of Green REIT, the first ever financing for a public to private real estate transaction in Europe by a non-bank lender, the establishment of a +€1B pan-European logistics lending program, and expansion into most Western European markets.

Prior to joining Blackstone, Michael spent six years at LaSalle Investment Management alongside Amy Aznar overseeing the set-up and growth of its market leading debt and special situations platform. During his time at LaSalle, Mr Zerda was involved in raising €1.9B of capital commitments of which €1.7B was deployed during his tenure across 35 individual whole loan, mezzanine, and structured equity investments.

Prior to joining LaSalle, Michael was Vice President in Merrill Lynch’s Global Principal Investments division in London, where he focused on European equity investments, including the acquisition of a €13B portfolio of non-performing loans and a loan servicing company from Banca Intesa in Italy. Prior to that he worked at Archon Group, Goldman Sachs’ real estate and distressed loan management platform and Archon Capital, Goldman Sachs’ real estate mezzanine platform. Michael received a BA in Finance from the Neely School of Business at Texas Christian University, where he graduated with honours.