Bassam Kameshki is a seasoned Real Estate Professional that has fifteen years of diversified real estate experience, of which he started his professional career from project and development management to consultancy to corporate real estate reaching to real estate investment banking. Throughout his career he worked with top regional real estate developers, consultants and banks granting him rich exposure to different stakeholders and industries within the real estate field. Bassam also developed unique educational background by obtaining a BSc in Civil engineering followed by professional certification in real estate to MBA with Merit from University of Strathclyde, Scotland, United Kingdom. On the social activity level, Bassam lectures at BIBF Institute about Real Estate, writes professional real estate articles for a seasoned Bahrain business magazine; Biz Bahrain and lectures about leadership as part of Injaz Bahrain Program.
Currently, Bassam is a co-founder and Director of Jisr Holding which is a Business Consultancy and Advisory boutique firm, and a Partner - Head of Middle East for Cordatus Real Estate, which is a UK-based Real Estate Investment Manager. Bassam maintains wide global and regional coverage given his background and achievements. Being on both sides; sell and buy side.
With Al Salam Bank, Bassam started the Real Estate Asset Management department that aimed to help the bank to monetize a large repossessed real estate local portfolio into cash that would be recycled back to core banking activities. He also introduced the concept of working closely with banking units on large financing mandates to make sure a real estate professional opinion is taken into consideration prior approving any large loan. As part of this, the valuation practice was developed further to be in line with bank’s strategy, being the largest Islamic lender in Bahrain.
At Ibdar Bank, Bassam successfully took a two midlevel-employee department from scratch to managing an international real estate portfolio of over USD 300 million all in one year from starting the operation, which included developing the bank’s real estate strategy and building the right team simultaneously; external and internal strategies. Bassam totally believes that understanding the financial returns aspects is important but understanding the underlying fundamentals of real estate and creating unique real estate investments opportunities are crucial and this is what differentiate one real estate investment manager from another.