Union Investment Real Estate GmbH is tearing up its own organisational chart at a moment when Europe's property markets are only just beginning to turn a corner, replacing four management divisions with three and betting that a single, unified real estate value chain will position it to capture the recovery ahead of competitors still working through slower, siloed decision-making.
At the centre of the change is a newly created Real Estate Management department, headed by Karim Esch, which folds investment and asset management into one function spanning the entire lifecycle of a property, from acquisition and letting through to sustainability strategy, technical development and eventual disposal, for both existing funds and portfolio management mandates run on behalf of third parties. "Bringing together investment and asset management puts us in the best possible position to benefit from recovery in the property markets. It will enable us to maximise the value we add for our private and institutional clients," said Michael Bütter, Chairman of the Management Board at Union Investment Real Estate GmbH. "We anticipate that in the new market cycle high rental yields will have a greater impact on total return than higher valuations. Accordingly, we are creating an end-to-end property management system that leverages our strong regional expertise in Germany and across European markets in every investment phase."
The reshuffle comes with a significant departure. Henrike Waldburg, who has sat on the Management Board since 2023 overseeing asset management across a portfolio worth more than €40bn spread over 22 national markets, has chosen not to renew her contract and will step down effective 31 August 2026. Her remit covered letting and tenancy management, project development and the sustainability agenda underpinning the entire portfolio, alongside her role as deputy CIO. "We would like to thank Henrike for her exceptional dedication, her loyalty and her lasting contribution to the development of our company," said Frank Engels, Chairman of the Supervisory Board. "As an outstanding manager with considerable experience in the real estate industry, she delivered significant benefits for our company. During her years with the company, she initiated many changes and made major contributions to the digitalisation and modernisation of central business processes. We very much regret her departure."
Bütter retains overall responsibility for strategy, fund management and marketing, while COO Gerald Kremer takes on an expanded Operations brief covering infrastructure, technology transformation, product development, data management, property research, real estate law, tax and participation management, with AI and digitalisation named explicitly as priorities for the platform going forward.
What has drawn less attention so far, but carries real weight for investors and developers scanning Europe for the next cycle's growth areas, is the strategic detail buried at the end of the announcement: Union Investment Real Estate intends to gradually widen the investment universe of its existing and future funds to include property related social infrastructure, such as healthcare, education and civic assets, alongside a continued focus on core European markets. For a platform managing tens of billions of euros, an explicit pivot toward social infrastructure signals fresh institutional deal flow into a subsector that has historically struggled to attract large-scale capital, and developers active in healthcare, education or public-sector-adjacent real estate should take note of a major German asset manager actively building capacity to acquire in this space.
Taken together, the restructuring reflects a broader shift already visible across European real estate platforms, where investment and asset management functions are increasingly being merged under single leadership to compete for institutional mandates and respond faster to a market cycle expected to reward income and rental growth over pure valuation uplift. For a firm the size of Union Investment Real Estate, the departure of a board member with three years of stewardship over a €40bn portfolio is a notable moment of transition, but the structural changes accompanying it suggest a platform positioning itself deliberately, rather than reactively, for what comes next.
People mentioned
- Karim Esch, Head of Real Estate Management, Union Investment Real Estate GmbH
- Michael Bütter, Chairman of the Management Board, Union Investment Real Estate GmbH
- Henrike Waldburg, outgoing Management Board member and deputy CIO, Union Investment Real Estate GmbH
- Frank Engels, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Union Investment Real Estate GmbH
- Gerald Kremer, Chief Operating Officer, Union Investment Real Estate GmbH
Companies mentioned
- Union Investment Real Estate GmbH, Hamburg-based real estate platform undergoing the restructuring described in this article
IMAGE: The EMPORIO in Hamburg - HQ of Union Investment's real estate business. Source: Union Investment
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