Helaba Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen is opening real estate offices in Berlin and Munich in January and February.
The decision to be directly present in these locations is part of the sales strategy in domestic real estate business and continues the strong expansion of business in the last few years.
Johann Berger, responsible at Board level for real estate business sees also future potential in both investment centres: "As real estate financier, we have established ourselves in the Greater Berlin and Munich areas over many years. Against this backdrop, the next logical step was the reinforcement of our presence there. That we are able to do this amid a difficult market phase shows that the course of our strategy is correct and the path we are following promises sustained success."
Head of the Berlin office is Harald Hoffmann, who has more than 20 years of experience in commercial property financing. He was formerly employed by various well-known real estate financiers and was, inter alia, responsible within the HVB Group for real estate business in eastern Germany. His current task is to cultivate and establish long-term business relationships to locally operating investors and developers in the greater Berlin area and the whole of eastern Germany.
Management of the Munich office is undertaken by Christian Buck. With around 20 years of financing experience in the Munich property scene, he had the task of building up the Royal Bank of Scotland's activities at its Munich location. Before this, he was in charge of customer counselling at the Munich branch of Eurohypo. In addition to cultivating already existing customers, part of his present assignment is to service locally operating investors at both the Munich location and in the whole of Bavaria.
Financing real estate is part of Helaba's traditional core business. In domestic real estate business, the main focal points are the Rhine-Main area, the conurbations of Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne and Düsseldorf, and also the Ruhr. In commercial property financing, Helaba specializes in office and retail property and is currently servicing a portfolio of more than €36 bln.
Source: Helaba
