Blackstone poaches Charter Hall’s Mark Harrison

The real estate arm of private equity giant Blackstone is understood to have poached Charter Hall’s head of capital transactions, Mark Harrison.

Mr Harrison will work under the direction of Blackstone Real Estate’s head of Australian operations, senior managing director Chris Tynan.

His appointment was first reported by DataRoom online on Tuesday and comes after a five-year stint at Charter Hall where he worked after being employed by the valuations units of Knight Frank and Landmark White.

Mr Harrison has also worked as an assistant property manager for JLL.

Like Charter Hall, Blackstone is one of the most active dealmakers in the Australian market. Last month it was poised to sell an office tower at Sydney’s 1 York Street for $300m, as reported at the time by The Australian, and divest an interest in Sydney’s $1.6bn Liberty Place.

The private equity firm has also been divesting Australian data centres, this year selling assets to Canadian rival Brookfield. Last year the buyout fund tried to buy the listed Investa Office Fund in a $3.3bn deal, but its offer was trumped by Oxford Properties.

Mr Tynan was recruited to run Blackstone’s Australian real estate business in 2015 from Morgan Stanley.