JLL expands its real estate Debt & Financial Advisory service to Finland

The fast growth of the real estate investment market creates demand for new types of financing solutions. In addition to traditional bank financing, increasingly more versatile financing options have emerged due to new credit providers, such as insurance companies and debt funds, entering the market. Navigating the broadened range of financing instruments requires more in-depth expertise from management, creating a growing market for advisory services as well.

“With its 30% market share, JLL is already the leading buy and sell-side advisor in Finland. Debt advisory is an ideal addition to our advisory service offer, as with this service, we can address an even broader range of client needs related to real estate investments and financing,” CEO of JLL Finland Tero Lehtonen explains.

Eemeli Lehto will join JLL on September 1, 2021. Before transferring to JLL, Eemeli worked as the Chief Financial Officer of Ylva, the asset management company of the Student Union of the University of Helsinki. Before his time at Ylva, Eemeli worked as Senior Manager in the Debt Capital Markets unit of Danske Bank.

“I am naturally thrilled and highly motivated to be joining the JLL team. It is a great opportunity to lead and design a service for which there is such high demand in the market. Financing arrangements and transactions require specific expertise that we can now offer to JLL’s clients in Finland as well. My new role allows me to leverage the skillset I have attained from working in the field of versatile financing arrangements to provide novel solutions and reliable advice to our clients”.

High demand for the service

According to a survey by JLL, up to 69% of the international lenders operating in the EMEA area have a desire to finance real estate investments in Finland. Despite the strong appetite, only 28% of the respondents have thus far done so. Matching investors’ financing needs with this untapped supply is a key objective with the introduction of the Debt & Financial Advisory service in Finland. Another key finding of the surveys is that there is strong demand for professional advice regarding financing options.

The Debt & Financial Advisory service is available for both domestic and international investors that utilize external financing in their real estate investments.

According to Tero Uusitalo, Co-Head of Capital Markets at JLL Finland, the new service encompasses arranging financing and potential refinancing for the investment, negotiating the terms of financing, assessing and optimizing the portfolio’s risk profile, optimizing the capital structure and developing or updating the hedging strategy.

“In the future, we can also consider expanding the service from real estate to infrastructure projects, if this is something that our clients want,” Uusitalo says. 

JLL (NYSE: JLL) is a leading professional services firm that specializes in real estate and investment management. JLL shapes the future of real estate for a better world by using the most advanced technology to create rewarding opportunities, amazing spaces and sustainable real estate solutions for our clients, our people and our communities. JLL is a Fortune 500 company with annual revenue of $16.6 billion, operations in over 80 countries and a global workforce of more than 91,000 as of March 31, 2021. JLL is the brand name, and a registered trademark, of Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated. For further information, visit jll.com.