Wurtzebach will co-head the company's capital transactions team.He was previously the director of investment banking at BMO CapitalMarkets. Mansour was previously the vice president for real estate,leisure and lodging investment banking at BMO Capital Markets. BothWurtzebach and Mansour were also previously founding partners ofSilver Portal Capital.

LeRoy has more than 17 years experience with the real estateindustry and was previously managing director at Bear Stearns. "Allthree of them have very strong local market experience and contactsin the industry," says Kylie Rampa, head of real estate capital forNorth America for Macquarie.

Macquarie has 90 employees in the US with approximately 50 ofthem based in Chicago, Rampa says. Last October, Macquarie hired 13people for the Chicago office's commercial mortgage-backedsecurities business, including Nate Stearns who is the head of thegroup, Rampa says. With the recent hiring's and the hiring's lastfall, "that was a very strategic move to broaden our debt businessin the US market," she says.