Real Estate Finance – Core+ Real Estate Financial Reporting & Operations, Associate Full Time

The Firm is looking to recruit an Associate to work as part of the Financial Reporting & Operations team covering Blackstone’s Core+ real estate funds; primarily focussing on Blackstone Property Partners Europe (“BPPE”).

In this role, the Associate will be an integral member of the Real Estate Finance team in London focusing on financial reporting and operations. The focus of the team is to produce timely and accurate financial information for reporting to investors, other external and internal stakeholders. The team aims for best-in-class business partnering with all Blackstone Real Estate departments including Business Strategy, Asset Management, Transactions, Capital Markets and Investor Relations. The Associate will have the opportunity to participate in an array of projects and will be expected to assume a key role on the team.

Primary responsibilities will include:

• Distributions: act as project lead for the quarterly distribution cycle:
  • Critically challenge local accountants on cash available for distribution
  • Coordinate with internal stakeholders, including tax and asset management, for review and approval of distributions
  • Manage the FX trade and cash flow process to ensure timely payments to investors
  • Prepare high-quality analysis for reporting to senior management.
• Bond Programme: manage operations of BPPE’s bond programme, Blackstone Property Partners Europe Holdings (“BPPEH”); including:
  • Tracking and reporting debt and interest allocations to investments,
  • Oversee production of biannual financing statements and audit
  • Supporting the annual credit rating process.
• FP&A: Support with Revantage with the preparation and senior review of the quarterly P&L of investments. Collaborate with across funds and geographic regions to enhance consistency and automation of reporting.
• Cash management: monitoring the cash and liquidity position of investments to support effective working capital management, including maximising interest income through effective use of treasury instruments/deposits.
• Business Partner: being a trusted business partner to various internal stakeholders. Producing high-quality, insightful analysis, both recurring and ad-hoc, to support decision making of the asset management and fund strategy teams.
• Automation: Identify and lead development of improvements to existing processes and implementation of technology initiatives.
• Valuations: work closely with the Valuation team to ensure timely and accurate investment level financial information is included in the Fund’s NAV.
• Managerial experience: oversight and review of activities performed by Revantage Luxembourg and leading efforts to increase the use of the Centre of Excellence team in India.

Qualifications

Blackstone seeks to hire individuals who work well in a team-driven working group, are highly motivated, intelligent, have sound judgment and have demonstrated excellence in all prior endeavours.

The successful candidate must have:

• Degree qualified, plus ACA/ACCA (or local equivalent qualification) or CFA
• 5+ years’ experience in an accounting / finance role (either in industry or in practice)
• Prior experience in real estate and/or asset management sectors is a significant advantage
• Strong analytical and financial skills, including strong knowledge of finance and accounting and excellent Excel expertise
• Experience of using technology to delivering process improvements or automation an advantage.
• High motivation and be able to work independently and manage numerous, conflicting priorities and requests
• Confidence to build relationships and be a key contact point for a range of senior stakeholders
• Inquisitive mindset that seeks to fully understand, be accountable for, and improve delivery of their responsibilities.
• Willingness to take on additional projects and support others in the department outside their direct responsibilities.

Source: Blackstone Career Page

Tagged as: REPE Firm