CB Richard Ellis has announced the appointment of two property consultants to lead a specialist capital markets team based in its Belfast office. Gavin Elliot and Tim Reid join CBRE as associate directors. The Belfast office will now offer capital markets advisory services on every aspect of domestic and overseas commercial property investment to meet the needs of CBRE's growing client base.

Similarly, real estate services firm Savills has announced that it has created a new role to strengthen its capital markets team in Spain. The broker has appointed Pablo Pavía to head of national investment in the Capital Markets department at Savills Spain. Pavia joined Savills office agency department in 2005 and in his new role, which he started this month at Savills' Madrid office, he is working with national Spanish clients, both proprietors and investors, in the capital markets department headed by Luis Espadas.

Separately, Savills said it has appointed Richard Crook to head of business development for the UK & Europe. Crook, who joins as a director, has over 17 years property marketing experience with the last 14 years working at Drivers Jonas, now Drivers Jonas Deloitte (DJD) as marketing and business development director. He will be based at Savills Grosvenor Hill headquarters in London.

Afiaa, the investment foundation owned by 20 Swiss pension funds, has announced the appointment of Peter Forstmoser to its foundation board. He is a business attorney, a university professor and former chairman of the administrative board of the Schweizerische Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft (Swiss Re).

Germany's DIC Asset is also enhancing its team in the areas of Special Funds and Marketing and Capital Market Communications with the appointment of Thomas Werner. Werner is an experienced expert in the field of real estate investment products; in his most recent position at Aberdeen Asset Management Germany, he was responsible for looking after institutional clients.

Finally, Spearhead Capital Partners has announced the appointment of real estate specialist Anthony Biddulph as a consultant to assist with the management of its operations in Europe & the Middle East. Biddulph will focus on deepening relationships with European and Middle Eastern investors and extending the activities of Spearhead. Biddulph has 12 years of investment management and real estate experience, most recently serving as director at AMB Properties. Prior to that, he was head of the Europe & Middle Eastern client account management group at Blackrock and also worked in Asia at Savills and at CBRE.