Language：
Our leadership team
The management and key professionals of Tokyo Trust Capital have extensive cross border real estate experience at investment banks, private equity funds, financial institutions, developers, and construction companies. All have worked in both Japanese and western institutions. All of the team members have worked together at prior positions with some having worked together for more than a decade.
Director
Kaori Furuta
Ms. Furuta joined TTC from Aozora Bank where she was a Senior Vice President in charge managing the bank’s real estate loan portfolio in North America, UK and Australia. The portfolio spanned all asset types including office, retail, hotel, residential and she managed a team which monitored and reported on loan and asset performance focusing on both the asset and market levels. Prior to Aozora Bank, she handled professional roles in asset management at LaSalle Investment Management, real estate non-recourse loan origination at Shinsei Bank and loan recovery control functions at Goldman Sachs Realty. Earlier in her career she worked at Singapore Development Bank and Cathay Pacific Airlines. Ms. Furuta is a graduate of Aoyama Gakuin Womens University.
Director
Jiro Yajima
Mr.Yajima has worked in the legal affairs group of large corporates including Konami, Toshiba and Nomura Real Estate. His wide range of legal experience has been in both the business and corporate levels where he worked on internal audits, audit committees, as well as being responsible for training employees in risk management and compliance. He is well experienced M&A, re-organization, and real estate from the legal and compliance side. Mr. Yajima holds a law degree from Chuo University as well as finishing graduate work at the Aoyama Gakuin University School of Law.
Mr. Handte has had a long career in Japanese real estate with experience in investment, financing and asset management. Mr. Handte was Head of BlackRock’s Real Estate business in Japan from 2015 to 2022 where he was responsible for all investments and managed all aspects of the business, including strategy, sourcing, and asset management for both core-plus and opportunistic mandates. BlackRock`s Asian Core-Plus Fund was the #1 ranked fund in its category in 2019, and the Japan assets produced 80% of the overall performance.
Mr. Handte began his real estate career in the Real Estate Investment Banking Group of Deutsche Bank in New York in 2001. He was transferred to Japan in 2004 to the CRE lending and securitization business. Mr. Handte then ran the non-recourse real estate lending team covering primarily investment funds at Shinsei Bank. Mr. Handte was responsible for the largest structured financing deal ever in Japan for the purchase of Pacific Century Place Building in 2006. During his tenure, he oversaw the origination and closing of over JPY 1.5 trillion (USD 15 billion) across 43 transactions. He also managed Shinsei Bank’s first non-recourse real estate loan securitization and the resolution and restructuring of all financings after the GFC.
Mr. Handte headed the structure finance business for GE Capital in Japan from 2011 to 2014. Mr. Handte ran his own advisory company from 2014 to 2015, and he originated an off-market, over USD 500 mm joint venture opportunity for Goldman Sachs with a Japanese private real estate company, for a redevelopment of an entire block in Dogenzaka, Shibuya.
Mr. Handte has lived and worked in Japan for over 25 years. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Princeton University and his MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Christopher Handte
Chief Executive Officer
Managing Director
Yuji Tomoda
Mr. Tomoda started his career at Mitsui Trust & Banking (now the Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank) where he worked on real estate lending in the New York Branch Office and lead the start up of non-recourse lending business of Japanese real estate in the Tokyo Head Office. He was also selected as a specialist in overseas business and spent a year in France on company scholarship. After Mitsui, he worked in various senior roles at GMAC Commercial Mortgage (Japan), Unified Partners under Nomura Holdings and Ishin Hotels Group under Grove International where he was in charge of loan origination, CMBS, acquisition and asset management. Prior to joining TTC he was a Director in the Acquisition Group at Aetos Japan LLC where he worked on both inbound and outbound strategies. Mr. Tomoda is a graduate of Keio University, a licensed Real Estate Broker in Japan and US-CPA (Washington State).
Advisor
Minoru Machida
Prior to joining Tokyo Trust Capital, Mr. Machida was Managing Director and Representative in Japan for Aetos Japan, LLC. from 2001 to 2005, and again from early 2014 to April of 2016. Mr. Machida lead the start up of Aetos Japan in 2001 and as co-head of Aetos Japan made a key contribution to Aetos’s initial fund by leading efforts in the sourcing of many large acquisitions including that of Matsushita Kosan Corporation, one of the largest real estate M&A deals in Japan at that time. During the interim years 2005-2013, Mr. Machida worked in various senior roles within the Japanese and Asian real estate markets, GE Commercial Finance where he pioneered GE’s first real estate deals in India and China, and Warburg Pincus where he was head of Japan for both Corporate PE and Real Estate. Prior to joining Aetos Japan, Mr. Machida was an Executive Vice President of Lone Star Japan Acquisitions, LLC, where he was responsible for a deal origination team which sourced and executed nearly 100 transactions totaling more $1.5 billion in equity investments including the acquisition of Tokyo Sowa Bank which became the Tokyo Star Bank. Mr. Machida started his career with Shimizu Corporation, one of the largest construction and development companies in Japan, where he worked on overseas real estate development projects in the international business division and in the corporate strategy departments. His tenure at Shimizu includes four years of overseas assignments in Malaysia and the United States. Mr. Machida received a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Rikkyo University and his MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Director
Kaori Furuta
Ms. Furuta joined TTC from Aozora Bank where she was a Senior Vice President in charge managing the bank’s real estate loan portfolio in North America, UK and Australia. The portfolio spanned all asset types including office, retail, hotel, residential and she managed a team which monitored and reported on loan and asset performance focusing on both the asset and market levels. Prior to Aozora Bank, she handled professional roles in asset management at LaSalle Investment Management, real estate non-recourse loan origination at Shinsei Bank and loan recovery control functions at Goldman Sachs Realty. Earlier in her career she worked at Singapore Development Bank and Cathay Pacific Airlines. Ms. Furuta is a graduate of Aoyama Gakuin Womens University.
Director
Hiroaki Kaneshima
Prior to joining TTC, Mr. Kaneshima had been with Sumitomo-Mitsui Trust & Banking (SMTB) for more than fourteen years. At SMTB he has widely experienced individual and corporate lending, domestic and foreign company corporate finance, and real estate project lending. With the real estate lending team he was in charge of client coverage of domestic and foreign asset management firms and originated loans for large office buildings, data centers and a wide range of other asset types. He also the experienced many debt syndication assignments.
Mr. Kaneshima holds degree in economics from the University of Kobe. He is a licensed real estate broker and also holds the Master’s License in Real Estate Securitization.
Director
Jiro Yajima
Mr.Yajima has worked in the legal affairs group of large corporates including Konami, Toshiba and Nomura Real Estate. His wide range of legal experience has been in both the business and corporate levels where he worked on internal audits, audit committees, as well as being responsible for training employees in risk management and compliance. He is well experienced M&A, re-organization, and real estate from the legal and compliance side. Mr. Yajima holds a law degree from Chuo University as well as finishing graduate work at the Aoyama Gakuin University School of Law.
Director
Koji Naoi
Koji Naoi started his career at Meiji-Yasuda Life Insurance where he was involved in control functions at HQ and also sales management. After switching to the accounting specialization he has worked at one of the largest steel manufacturers and large TSE listed firms handling accounting, financial management, tax affairs, internal control (J-SOX), internal auditing functions.
Most recently he was employed by a PE fund as CFO/board member of a portfolio company where he re-organized control functions and contributed to the creation. His role was completed with the successful exit of the PE fund, there after joining TTC in his current position.
Naoi-san is a graduate of Meiji University Law Department.