Daniel Okin

I worked for Deloitte for 3 years from 2009, working across the Valuation, Central London Office Agency and Business Rates teams, I qualified as a chartered surveyor in 2012 into the investment valuation team specialising in loan security and portfolio valuations. In 2013 I joined Square Metre Asset Management as the first employee to grow a newly established joint venture, as the operating partner to Goldman Sachs. I joined Square Metre as an asset manager, establishing our reporting and asset management functions. My role developed into a portfolio strategy role and head of acquisitions and disposals. During this time, we successfully acquired, managed and disposed of over £1bn of UK commercial real estate across all core commercial sectors and geographies of the UK.

I work with a broad range of capital partners including private equity funds, banks, multi-family offices, UHNWs, institutions, pension funds and local authorities. I work across the Harmsworth Pooled Property Unit Trust [aka Daily Mail Pension Fund] portfolios overseeing the portfolio and implementing strategic asset management initiatives.

MY RECENT PROJECTS

• Acquisition, Management and Disposal – Multiple portfolios –Due diligence, business planning and acquisition of five portfolios consisting of 116 assets with a value of c.£675m across the core commercial sectors throughout the UK. Oversaw the asset management and exit of all assets achieving substantial outperformance of underwritten business plans.
• Acquisition and Portfolio Management – The Aleta Portfolio – The successful acquisition, management and ultimate exit of a mis-priced, UK pension fund portfolio comprising 26 commercial assets throughout the UK. It was acquired during a period of material capital market dislocation in the immediate aftermath of the UK’s referendum on EU membership, for ~£350M in a co-invested joint venture partnership with Goldman Sachs.  Substantial market outperformance was delivered through acquisition timing, diligent business planning, precise asset management execution, wholesale-to-retail value, and astute hold-sell acumen.
• Investment Strategy – Indigo & Omega Portfolios – Strategic sell-down of 45% of the Square Metre Asset Management’s & Goldman Sachs’ post-financial crisis strategy. Having recognised a flood of equity into the market into which the JV had bought 2+ years earlier, a detailed hold-sell analysis was undertaken to identify where outsized return could be achieved, on a risk-adjusted basis, for a wholesale rather than retail sale strategy.  A recommendation to sell an institutional portfolio, an opportunistic portfolio and hold a select few assets was adopted, ultimately resulting material market outperformance across the portfolio.