Astarte Capital Expansion Shows No Signs of Slowdown

Astarte Capital Partners, an alternative investment firm founded in 2015, is on a hiring tear.

The real assets manager said Monday that Omar Habboush joined its business development team from Citigroup in London, where he worked with pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and central banks. Astarte has been expanding rapidly, announcing hires from AMP Capital, and Banco Santander, and Royal Bank of Canada over the past four months.

“The ongoing growth of our team reflects the strength in our pipeline of opportunities and Omar’s experience will be valuable as our investor base expands globally,” said Stavros Siokos, co-founder and managing partner of London-based Astarte Capital Partners, in the statement. 

Astarte targets natural resources, transportation, and real estate, and has opened more than $2 billion of co-investment opportunities, according to Siokos. Over the past few years, the firm has expanded to more than 20 professionals globally, with offices in Zurich, Sydney, Toronto, and New York.

Habboush worked at Citigroup for seven years, including on the bank’s institutional sales and fixed income sales teams, according to Astarte. He is the firm’s third hire this month, along with finance director Richard Templer and investment director Bruno Fumach in London.

Templer previously focused on global infrastructure funds at AMP Capital, while Fumach worked in real assets at Santander, according to the statement.

In April, Astarte announced that it raised a £400 million ($489 million) real estate fund to invest in the London market. The same month, the firm said it hired investment director Nick Clayton, who had 10-plus years of experience in public and private real estate at firms including RF Capital and BlackRock.

[II Deep Dive: JPMorgan: Real Assets Are the New Bonds]

Astarte also announced in April that it hired Shaun Allan from RBC as an associate on its investment team. Allan had advised the bank’s clients on mergers and acquisitions in utilities, transportation, and renewable energy. 

“Astarte has been rapidly expanding in Europe, North America, and Australia by forming strategic partnerships with experienced real asset operating teams in order to establish specialist asset managers in the areas of transportation, natural resources, and thematic real estate,” Siokos said when announcing the hiring of Clayton and Allan. 

Within natural resources, the asset manager invests in agriculture, clean energy, and water, according to its website. The firm targets aviation, rail, and shipping assets as sub-sectors of transportation, and focuses on such specialist real estate areas as hospitality.

“We continue to see excellent potential for deals in the real assets space,” Siokos said in Monday’s statement.