Baloise pushes real estate business
In the future, Baloise intends to offer more services for third parties in the area of real estate management. The division will be transferred to a separate AG, and a real estate fund is also planned.
Baloise, one of the largest institutional real estate owners in Switzerland, intends to offer more services to third parties - including in the real estate sector - as part of a strategic realignment in the area of asset management. To this end, the division will be transferred to a separate stock corporation and a real estate fund for qualified investors will be launched, Baloise announced. Dieter Kräuchi (49) has been appointed as the new Head of Real Estate at Baloise, and Thomas Hasse Biniasch (49) will be Head of Portfolio Management for the division.
Dieter Kräuchi was Managing Director of Avobis Asset Management, a real estate asset manager specializing in asset management, financing and transactions, until the end of March. Previously, he worked, among other things, as a real estate appraiser at KPMG, then developed hotel projects in Switzerland and abroad at Swissôtel/Raffles International, before heading portfolio management at Allreal for seven years. Dieter Kräuchi is a member of RICS and holds a Master of Science in Real Estate (CUREM). He will take up his position at Baloise on June 1, 2017.
Thomas Hasse Biniasch has been Head of Portfolio Management and a member of the Executive Board at Post Immobilien und Management Services AG for the past four years. Prior to that, he spent 14 years at Nationale Suisse, first as Head of Real Estate Portfolio Management, then for eight years as Head of Real Estate. Thomas Hasse Biniasch completed his studies in economics at the University of Basel with a licentiate and trained as a federally certified financial analyst and asset manager/CIIA. He will take up his position on August 1, 2017.
With the appointment of Kräuchi and Biniasch to the two key positions, "an important course has been set for the realignment of the Real Estate division," says Matthias Henny. As of May 1, 2017, he will be the new head of the Asset Management Division.
Baloise's portfolio includes 510 properties with around 34,000 rental properties, 13,500 of which are apartments. In total, the Real Estate division manages CHF 6.1 billion in assets with over 60 employees.
