Julius Baer: New unit for Swiss real estate investments
The Julius Baer Group intends to significantly expand its real estate services offering in Switzerland and is preparing to do so by acquiring a majority stake in the renowned Zurich-based real estate services provider KMP Kuoni Mueller & Partner.
As part of its market strategy for Switzerland, Julius Baer Group Ltd. will expand its real estate service offering, which has so far been limited to mortgage finance, to cover the entire real estate life cycle, including advisory, brokerage, financing and structuring, as well as related services such as investment management, valuation and specialized property management. To this end, the Group is acquiring an 83 percent stake in KMP Kuoni Mueller & Partner, one of the leading integrated real estate service providers based in Zurich, as a first step. The parties have agreed not to disclose the price of the transaction with KMP, which is considered profitable. However, the acquisition will not have a material impact on Julius Baer's capital ratios, the Zurich-based private bank says.
Dominik Weber, the current majority owner and CEO of KMP, will take on the new position of Head Real Estate Advisory at Julius Baer and establish the bank's new real estate unit from Q4 2021. The new subsidiary will reportedly act as a strategic partner in the areas of real estate valuation, management and brokerage of commercial and residential real estate, the latter via both traditional and digital channels, such as KMP's existing platform Maklando. In the residential real estate brokerage business, the strong KMP presence in the Zurich area will be expanded to the French-speaking part of Switzerland and market coverage will also be established in Ticino. Julius Baer will continue to work with third-party providers in the real estate sector and thus pursue an open architecture approach in the future, the bank adds. (bw)
