Stephen Benson
Strategic Advisor
Stephen is able to draw on wide-ranging experience in the real estate finance world. Originally qualifying as a Chartered Surveyor, Stephen spent 8 years in capital markets at Knight Frank and CBRE before co-founding Rivercrown (2004), a pan-European Investment Management business which he led until his departure in 2022.
Whilst there, he was instrumental in building its European platform across the UK, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands and Germany, focusing on the distressed real estate equity and credit market. Over 18-years, Stephen led Rivercrown to form partnerships with leading global institutions including Goldman Sachs, BAML, Deutsche Bank, Oaktree, Apollo, GIC and Davidson Kempner amongst others. A large part of Stephen’s time was spent in the non-performing loan space, acquiring over €5bn of loans in various partnerships.
In addition to structured finance, Stephen has also acquired direct assets in the UK, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands and Germany, many of which were bought in partnership with the aforementioned institutions. Finally, Stephen has also spent the past 2 years restructuring distressed projects and arranging specialist stretched lending.
Stephen is married with two children and is a fitness enthusiast and a lifelong Arsenal supporter, following them home and away.