AMB Property Corporation (NYSE: AMB) has appointed European real estate veteran Anton van Vlerken as vice president, general manager, Benelux. In his new capacity, he will be responsible for operations and development of AMB's portfolio in the Benelux region.
Van Vlerken, who has a 13-year record in pan-European industrial and commercial real estate, most recently served as director real estate for Laurus Real Estate & Legal. At Laurus, a major Dutch food retail company, he was responsible for all real estate development, operations and dispositions. In this capacity, he ran the 450 millon disposition program, comprising 320,000 m² of retail space and approximately 60,000 m² of warehouse space.
Previously, van Vlerken helped grow the Benelux platform for DHL Benelux, Deutsche Post Real Estate as director real estate & facility manager Benelux. Under his management, a portfolio of some 140 commercial assets was redefined. He was also responsible for the development pipeline, growing the DHL network, and determining the disposition strategy.
For 3 years prior to that, he served with Ahold Real Estate, a subsidiary of Dutch-based supermarket and foodservice operator Ahold, where he initially acquired, leased and managed aportfolio of some 1200 retail shops, such as Etos, Gall & Gall, de Tuinen and Jamin, before he moved to their European real estate branch, Ahold Real Estate Europe. In his capacity as managing director real estate Baltic States, he introduced and expanded their presence with developments in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania and gained valuable partnership experience which he will bring to AMB.
Before that, he acted as manager of acquisitions and franchise for the Dutch-based Etos drug stores, predominantly carrying out research regarding potential acquisition and franchise locations. Van Vlerken started his career with Sperwer National, a Dutch supermarket chain, where he acquired, developed and relocated commercial real estate. "We very excited to expand our management team in Europe and to embrace the expertise and leadership that Anton brings to our growing premier real estate platform here," said Alfred Vos, Senior Vice President, Director of Operations and Development, Europe.
Van Vlerken holds an MBA in Strategic Retail Management from the Haarlem Business School, The Netherlands, and is certified in higher food management from the Nijenrode University in Breukelen. He also holds a bachelor's degree in Food and Business from the Hogeschool Heerlen and is fluent in Dutch, English and German. Van Vlerken will report to Alfred Vos, AMB's senior vice president, director of development and operations, Europe. The company's European regional office is located in the World Trade Center Amsterdam.
Source: AMB
