EUROPE - UBS Global Asset Management has boosted its continental European real estate team with the recruitment of three executives from property firm Lend Lease.

UBS, the sixth largest manager of European pension fund assets, said it has hired Lend Lease Real Estate Investments European chief executive Charles Foster Taylor. He would head up the group's acquisition and disposition role. UBS has also hired Simon Foxley and Mark Chamieh from Lend Lease.

Foxley, who formerly ran Lend Lease's European Value Enhanced Fund, will be a senior portfolio manager at UBS. Chamieh becomes head of institutional marketing and business development.

"This growth provides clients with an increasing range of investment opportunities in this important asset class," UBS said. The new team, to be based in London, will combine with UBS's existing Swiss-based property team to provide an "integrated, full-service continental European real estate business to serve institutional and wholesale clients"

The combined team will manage the UBS group's real estate assets and set up an open-ended euro real estate fund. It also plans to launch a number of closed-end investment vehicles targeted primarily at the European institutional market.

"The UK team, which runs the award winning Triton fund, will be unaffected by this new initiative," it added.