LaSalle Investment Management “LaSalle” today announced two new additions to its Mexico Team: Manuel Zapata as Chief Investment Strategist and Richard Jacobs as Portfolio Controller.
“Thanks to its compelling real estate fundamentals, Mexico continues to attract the attention of increasing numbers of investors from around the world,” said Eduardo Güémez, managing director and CEO of LaSalle Investment Management Mexico. “The addition of Manuel and Rich to our Mexico team is part of the ongoing expansion of our staff and execution capabilities in Mexico, which LaSalle views as one of the most exciting real estate investment opportunities in North America.”
As Chief Investment Strategist, Zapata is responsible for macroeconomic insight, sector analysis, property market forecasting and micro-market underwriting for specific assets in Mexico. He joins LaSalle with 12 years of experience as a real estate analyst, most recently with GE Real Estate, where he was the Senior Underwriter responsible for equity and debt risk-return analysis. Prior to GE, Zapata was a Senior Equity Analyst for Citigroup Equity Research – Accival Banamex. Before joining Accival, he designed financial models to forecast cash flow for one of Mexico City’s leading apartment companies. Zapata holds a Masters in Finance degree from Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) and Bachelor of Science degree in finance and business from Appalachian State University in North Carolina. He is a Charted Financial Analyst and will be located in Mexico City.
In his new role as Portfolio Controller, Richard Jacobs is fully dedicated to all aspects of accounting, financial reporting and performance measurement for LaSalle’s business in Latin America. Jacobs brings 11 years of experience as a financial professional, most recently as Assistant Controller at Aon Corp. In that capacity, he was responsible for financial reporting for Aon’s Latin American region. While at Aon, Jacobs also had primary reasonability for implementation of Sarbanes Oxley requirements across the Latin America region. Jacobs is a 1993 graduate of the University of Illinois with a Bachelor degree in Economics, including a year of international study at Waseda University in Japan. He also earned a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Notre Dame, including a semester of concentration in Latin American Business Studies at I.L.A.D.E.S. University in Santiago, Chile. Jacobs is a Chartered Financial Analyst and Certified Public Accountant. He will be located in Chicago.
