Evercore Partners Inc has expanded its Private Funds Group, which provides independent advisory services on capital raising and placement to select alternative asset managers, with the appointment of senior distribution professionals in the US and Asia.
The Private Funds Group has completed its US distribution team following the appointment of Christopher Brand as a Managing Director, and subject to regulatory approval, will initiate its expansion into Asia with the hire of William Lee.
Brand will be based in Evercore’s San Francisco office where he will be responsible for managing the group’s relationships with institutional investors on the West Coast. Lee will lead the Private Funds Group’s Asia offering, and will be responsible for developing the group’s institutional investor relationships in the region.
Brand was previously Managing Director at Ecotrust Forest Management where he managed the firm’s limited partner relationships and prior to this, was a Managing Director at Dahlman Rose & Co where he led their West Coast office. Brand received his B.A. in Economics from Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, and his J.D. from Willamette University College of Law in Salem, Oregon.
Lee joins Evercore from Asia Explorer Capital Limited, a firm he founded to raise assets for Asia-based hedge funds. Prior to this he served as a Senior Vice President at Fairfield Greenwich Group where he expanded the firm’s Asian presence. Lee received his B.S. with honors from Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada and an M.A. in Management from the Rotterdam School of Management in Rotterdam, Netherlands. He is fluent in Mandarin, Taiwanese and English.
“We welcome Chris and William to the Evercore team,” says Richard Anthony, Head of Evercore Private Funds Group. “In the current fundraising environment, funds need access to institutional investors around the world. We provide our clients with access to a comprehensive and talented global network of fundraising professionals with a focus that stretches across the three continents of Europe, Asia and North America. We believe it is critical to have genuine fundraising capabilities across these three continents.”
These hires follow the recent additions of Managing Directors Lincoln Singleton and Jim Swindell who are responsible for managing institutional investor relationships in the Southeast and Midwest US respectively, and Managing Director Alexander Russ, who re-located to New York (from London) in October to cover the Northeast region.
