Heim Global Investor – Investment Team Build
Heim Global Investor, the sister business to the European platform Heimstaden, launched a new UK residential fund targeting £800 million and a 5,000-unit portfolio across the UK’s top cities. The business was set up to offer new investment products to a wider range of investors while drawing on Heimstaden’s residential expertise. Delivering on that ambition needed more than capital. It needed a high-calibre investment team able to source, structure and execute deals at scale, and to build trusted relationships with institutional investors.
Rockbourne was first retained to recruit an Investment Analyst, Investment Manager and Senior Associate for Heim Global Investor, then continued to partner with Heim as it scaled its UK living investment capability under Heim Asset Management. Heim Asset Management’s UK Housing Platform Fund is backed by £600 million of equity committed by four local government pension pools, and had just closed the £1.2 billion acquisition of PRS REIT, adding 5,478 single-family homes to the portfolio, with a mandate to scale to between 15,000 and 20,000 homes over the next five to ten years. Rockbourne ran a parallel set of searches for two Investment Manager/Director roles and a further Investment Director to lead that next phase.
Across both engagements, Heim needed investment professionals able to operate with full ownership from day one, combining origination, execution and investor relationships in businesses that were still building their platform and track record in the UK. Technical ability alone was never enough. Cultural alignment with a flat, collaborative, low-ego business mattered just as much, and every hire needed to be a self-starter comfortable driving deals independently rather than leaning on hierarchy or committee process.
The first set of mandates, for an Investment Analyst, Investment Manager and Senior Associate, called for strong analytical and modelling ability, since each hire would support the wider investment team in screening, underwriting and monitoring deals. The second set, for two Investment Manager/Director roles and a further Investment Director, set an even sharper bar: genuine origination leadership and genuine end-to-end execution experience, in a market where deal activity had been thin for several years and many experienced candidates had spent recent years underwriting and preparing materials rather than completing transactions. Distinguishing candidates who had truly transacted from those merely adjacent to transactions took careful qualification throughout.
Rockbourne identified and engaged 961 candidates across the six searches.
For the Investment Director & Investment Manager mandates, the searches prioritised candidates with a demonstrable track record running residential real estate transactions cradle to grave, balancing origination, execution and investor relationships. The Associate searches called for a different profile: strong numerical and modelling ability, since the successful candidates would support the wider investment team in screening and underwriting deals. Across all six mandates, a genuine understanding of the UK real estate market had to sit alongside the right cultural fit, so behavioural assessment carried as much weight as technical evaluation.
To sharpen candidate engagement, Rockbourne built tailored showcase pages for each search, giving candidates a feel for Heim’s culture, platform and growth ambitions before they committed to the process. Shortlisted candidates completed both technical and behavioural questions, testing skill and cultural fit ahead of submission to Heim. Each of the three searches ran as a three-stage process with a case study at the second stage, giving Heim a consistent, well-rounded read on every candidate’s capability and fit.
Rockbourne delivered six hires for Heim across the two engagements: an Investment Analyst, Investment Manager and Senior Associate for Heim Global Investor, then two Investment Manager/Directors and a further Investment Director for Heim Asset Management’s UK Housing Platform Fund.
Together, these hires gave Heim the analytical, origination and execution capacity to pursue its £800 million UK fund target, and now support Heim Asset Management’s ambition to scale the UK Housing Platform Fund from 5,478 homes today to 15,000–20,000 over the next five to ten years.
6 mandates undertaken · 961 candidates mapped · 60 candidates presented · 54 interviews · 6 hires
“Rockbourne run a strong, well-structured process. They know the industry inside and out and have direct access to every relevant candidate. They offered clear advice helping us make a more informed decision. We really feel like we have ended up with six exceptional hires, and I am delighted.”
