Cairn Capital has appointed Peter Hansell to focus on the development and expansion of its existing real estate related activities and to run the company's soon-to-be-launched Ibex Fund, which will invest in commercial mortgage debt.

Hansell was previously a managing director in Lehman Brothers' Global Real Estate Group.

Prior to that he ran Standard & Poor's commercial mortgage backed securities rating team in Europe and he was a senior relationship manager specialising in commercial real estate related lending at Royal Bank of Scotland.

Cairn director David Henriques says: 'We are delighted to have further strengthened our real estate team with someone of Peter's depth and breadth of real estate expertise. He joins at an exciting time with the imminent launch of our first commercial real estate fund, the Ibex Fund, which will seek to take advantage of the unprecedented opportunities currently being offered in the commercial real estate debt market.'

Cairn Capital is active in the management of portfolios of asset backed securities, investment grade and crossover corporate credit and leveraged loans in cash and synthetic form, either directly for clients or as collateral pools for public and private transactions.

It also undertakes successor manager mandates where Cairn Capital has been mandated to replace the original management entity.

The firm manages a structured credit fund and a fund specialising in European leveraged loan opportunities.