Deutsche Wohnen
Andreas Segal - Deutsche Wohnen AG
To handle the dramatic new size of the company through the takeover, Gateway has hired well-known manager Andreas Segal as new CEO, and Holger Lüth as CFO.
The relatively unknown Gateway Real Estate has taken a significant leap into the upper leagues with its takeover of Düsseldorf-based project developer Development Partner, for an enterprise value of about €500m, and the arrival of new heavyweight top management.
Gateway, whose shares are listed on the Stuttgart Stock Exchange, plans to fund the takeover via a capital increase backed by hard assets, which will result in a quadrupling of its market capitalization of currently €74m. The company is 94% owned by investor Norbert Ketterer and his family, who also own a stake in fellow-listed Corestate Capital, which recently bought Ketterer’s mezzanine finance fund manager HFS. Ketterer’s Ketom AG also holds small stakes in blind-pool commercial property investor Godewind (3%) which listed on the stock market in March of this year, and in German project developer Gerch Group.
Development Partner, which was previously owned by ex-CEO Winfried Siebers and the Kreissparkasse Cologne among others, specializes in office and commercial properties. However, it is now owned by SN Beteiligungen Holding, whose sole shareholder is actually the Ketterer family interests. It employs 26 staff and is currently working on big projects like Cologne’s Kölnkubus Süd and One Cologne, and the Altstadtkarree in Nuremberg, along with about 20 participations in residential projects in eastern Germany and a residential project in Mannheim. The takeover by Gateway will see volume rise from €264m (end-2017) to more than €4bn – a giant step for Gateway.
To handle the dramatic new size of the company through the takeover, Gateway has hired well-known manager Andreas Segal as new CEO, and Holger Lüth as CFO. Segal was previously CFO at listed companies BUWOG and Deutsche Wohnen, while Lüth was in charge of corporate finance and investor relations at BUWOG, working alongside Segal, until the company was taken over by Vonovia.
The new enlarged Gateway plans to position itself as “a leading listed project developer focused on commercial property and its own managed portfolio.” Just this month it sold a prime asset, the Hohenzhollern in Frankfurt am Main, to Quest Investment Management as part of a share deal. The seven-storey building on Düsseldorfer Strasse 1-7 beside the main railway station was originally built as a hotel. It is the first investment in Frankfurt for Quest, who plan to restore the landmarked historic façade and refurbish the vacant office and commercial spaces in the interior as well as the access areas.
