bfw: Reto Borner becomes new CEO

Beat Frischknecht's successor Reto Borner (43) has been Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of bfw liegenschaften ag since 2010 and has developed the company's property portfolio together with Frischknecht during this time.

Frischknecht is the founder of bfw liegenschaften and has been a member of the Board of Directors since 2000. From 2000 until the end of April 2006 and again since 1 July 2012, he also served as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company. Frischknecht will step down from the Executive Board at the end of March 2017. However, he will remain with the company as a member of the Board of Directors and majority shareholder.

The position of CFO will be taken over by Philipp Hafen (41), who will also become a member of the Executive Board. Hafen is a qualified fiduciary expert and has extensive experience as CFO, including at Pretium AG, which was formerly listed on the BX Berne eXchange. Hafen has been CFO of bfw vermögensverwaltung ag since 2009. He has also been CFO of admicasa, with which bfw liegenschaften has concluded service agreements, since 2016. Reto Borner and Philipp Hafen will take up their new positions on 1 April 2017.

Record result expected for fiscal year 2016

For the 2016 financial year, bfw liegenschaften ag expects a record result. According to preliminary and unaudited results, EBIT is CHF 27.3 million (previous year: 19.5 million) and profit including revaluation and deferred taxes is CHF 18.2 million (previous year: 10.2 million). Excluding the fair value adjustments of the interest rate swaps and receiver swaptions, profit is around 18.7 million (previous year: 12.6 million).

According to the company, income from rentals was around six percent above the previous year's figure and reached CHF 16.8 million (previous year: 15.9 million). The market valuation of the property portfolio resulted in income from revaluation of CHF 13.2 million (previous year: CHF 6.4 million). The change in market values resulted primarily "from a further reduction in the discount rates by the independent real estate appraiser KPMG and from the successful development of the conversion projects", bfw reports.

The Company will publish its full 2016 Annual Report and further details of its annual results on 15 March 2017.