Catella expands within Hospitality capital markets

The aim is to help current and future actors in the sector via sustainable and sound fresh capital solutions. In the long term, the platform will become a natural extension of Catella’s market-leading Corporate Finance operation, providing debt advisory and M&A services to the hospitality sector and the growth in hospitality-related operational real estate, such as community driven student housing, serviced apartments, shared living as well as retirement- and care housing. 

Gustav’s profile is a rare hybrid of deep financial market knowledge and technical expertise, combined with a classic hospitality background. Growing up in his family’s hotel and earning his BSc from Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne in Switzerland, Gustav crossed over to the financial side of the sector 17 years ago, as an associate with the global hospitality financial consulting firm HVS International in New York. Expanding his reach, he became a lender to the sector, first with CWCapital in Boston, a national CMBS lender, and later with Aareal Bank in Wiesbaden, a global real estate focused balance sheet lender. Moving to the capital markets in 2014, Gustav headed Jones Lang LaSalle’s London-based Hotel Investment Banking EMEA platform, focusing on debt capital markets, before setting up his own hospitality capital advisory business in his native Copenhagen. 

“Providing specialized advisory services and being the link between property and finance constitutes the very DNA of Catella, and in a time when the demand for customized advisory and capital solutions has increased dramatically for the hospitality sector, we have identified an immediate need for friendly capital solutions.  At the same time, we have been determined to further expand and widen our operational real estate sector-related activities within capital markets. We see a strong growth within real estate investments adding new operational concepts ie community driven student- and senior housing, serviced apartments, shared living, care homes etc. The recruitment of Gustav is not only evidence of our desire to continually serve our clients better and grow our business, it is also a statement of our ambition to strengthen our position as an independent Pan-Nordic Real Estate Investment Bank with activities in real estate M&A, Debt Advisory and Investment Management. We are pleased that Gustav has decided to continue his career at Catella”, says Jesper Bo Hansen, Head of Corporate Finance Nordics at Catella.

“I know Catella’s business very well and consider it to be the strongest and most reputable name in real estate investment banking. Catella’s focus, reach and reputation is the perfect foundation and platform for the initiative. The hospitality sector is very close to my heart, and I’m both very happy and excited by the prospects of substantially widening the capital base and liquidity of the sector in a difficult time, as well as setting a new standard for how hotels and other operating assets are perceived and looked at as a real estate investment class in the Nordics going forward. Obviously, I’m really looking forward to contributing to the continuous development of Catella’s unique market position. The company’s strategy to strengthen its width and depth in hospitality here in Copenhagen, as a result of its Pan-Nordic expansion, is a great opportunity for me, which I look forward to pursuing”, says Gustav Correll Bjørn.