AB Commercial Real Estate Private Debt Fund Names Clark Coffee CEO, Replaces Three Directors
AllianceBernstein general counsel Mark Manley and Bernstein private wealth chief investment officer Alexander Chaloff join Coffee on the fund’s board.
October 26, 2026
Clark Coffee, AllianceBernstein's chief investment officer and head of European commercial real estate debt, has taken over as chief executive of AB Commercial Real Estate Private Debt Fund. His appointment is part of a change in the fund's chief executive, chief financial officer and three of its directors, all effective October 23, 2026.
Peter Gordon, the fund's chief executive, and Marguerite Brogan, its chief financial officer, gave notice on October 20 that they would step down from both their executive roles and their board seats. Edward Gellert, a third director, resigned at the same time. The fund said none of the resignations resulted from a disagreement over its operations, policies or practices, or from issues involving financial disclosures, accounting or legal matters.
Coffee also joins the board, alongside Mark Manley and Alexander Chaloff. Shane McGrogan, who works in AB's real estate group, becomes chief financial officer.
The New Chief Executive
Coffee came to AB in 2020, when the firm acquired his business, Lacarne Capital, to establish its real estate debt team in Europe. He also sits on AB's US Commercial Real Estate Debt Investment Committee.
His earlier roles include head of Tyndaris Real Estate, where he built a real estate debt fund business in Europe, and co-head of origination for Deutsche Bank's European commercial real estate credit business. At Deutsche Bank, he oversaw the risk management and restructuring of more than €2 billion of troubled loans during the global financial crisis.
The New Directors and CFO
- Mark Manley is AB's general counsel and corporate secretary. He joined the firm in 1984 and served as its chief compliance officer from 1988 until 2021. He sits on several of AB's senior operating, risk and compliance committees and, like Coffee, on the US Commercial Real Estate Debt Investment Committee.
- Alexander Chaloff has been president and chief executive of Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., Bernstein Fund, Inc. and AB Multi-Manager Alternative Fund since April 2023, and over the same period has served as chief investment officer and head of investment and wealth strategies at Bernstein Private Wealth Management. He has been a director or trustee of certain AB funds since March 2025.
- Shane McGrogan joined AB in 2017 and is a director for US commercial real estate debt in its real estate group, responsible for cash management, accounting, operations and portfolio analytics. He previously worked at SEI Investments, Mitsubishi UFJ Fund Services and Bank of New York Mellon, and is a CFA charterholder.
The leadership change follows two additions to the fund's bank financing this year. In September, a fund lending subsidiary entered a $500 million master repurchase agreement with Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, two months after the fund raised the ceiling on its Citibank repurchase facility to $750 million from $500 million.
