Financiers Robert Bell and Robert Palache have launched a real estate business to help people cope with the lack of liquidity in the market.

Bell Capital Partners LLP plans to assist in raising mezzanine debt, hybrid capital and equity for their real estate assets in the UK and Europe.

Bell and Palache have worked in the European real estate market for two decades, leading transactions which raised billions in debt and hybrid capital for their clients.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP, an international law firm with a real estate finance practice, will provide legal services.

Robert Bell said: ‘The lack of liquidity in the European real estate market is as much a result of the disappearance of competent intermediaries as it is the result of the credit crisis.

‘This market needs financiers, who can, on the one hand, structure and execute financings and, on the other hand, coordinate groups of interested investors into syndicates that can fund these financings. It is the intention of Bell Capital Partners to provide this vital link between real estate sponsors and the investment community.’

Robert Palache said: ‘We want to get to work to helping clients and investors strike properly structured and documented financing deals in the real estate sector. With the banks having lost their teams of structures, we are ready to step into the breach.’