Paul Schimweg
Dr. Tilman Hickl, CEO, H2i Asset Management
H2i Asset Management is a Munich-based investment and asset manager, founded in 2019 by Hans Hammer and Dr. Tilman Hickl, that works with institutional partners across the full real estate lifecycle. The firm typically gets involved early, structuring mezzanine financing and joint ventures at the project development stage, before taking over asset management once a property is completed and let. It's a model built on pairing a development background with institutional investment management experience — the combination H2i positions as its main point of difference. REFIRE spoke with Dr. Tilman Hickl, CEO at H2i Asset Management.
REFIRE: Germany’s real estate market has become much harder to read from the outside. Financing costs have risen, transaction volumes remain subdued and many institutional investors have become more selective. Yet in several complex situations, family office capital seems to be moving closer to the centre of the conversation again. How do you interpret the current market environment?
Dr. Tilman Hickl: The market has changed in a way that makes the differences between investor groups much more visible. For a long period, institutional capital shaped large parts of the German real estate investment market. That was natural in an environment with low interest rates, strong liquidity and relatively predictable exit assumptions.
Today, many institutional investors have to look much more closely at regulation, internal allocation limits, financing costs and the return they can achieve compared with government bonds. This has made them more cautious, especially in areas that were previously considered almost self-evident, such as offices, high-street retail or large development projects.
REFIRE: That almost suggests the current market is revealing structural differences that were always there, but remained largely invisible while capital was abundant.
Dr. Tilman Hickl: Family offices operate with a different degree of freedom. They still assess risk very carefully, of course. But they are often less constrained by quarterly reporting structures, regulatory capital requirements or the need to generate a specific running yield each year. That allows them to evaluate situations that many institutional investors simply cannot pursue under today’s conditions. In some parts of the market, this has quietly shifted the balance of opportunity.
REFIRE: The distinction you describe goes beyond timing. It suggests that family offices do not simply become more active in certain market phases. They often arrive at different conclusions while looking at exactly the same opportunity.
Dr. Tilman Hickl: The market is often described as though one group simply replaces another. In reality, both groups frequently evaluate the same asset through entirely different investment logics.
REFIRE: Flexibility, then, is not simply a question of investment horizon. It also changes the questions an investor is able to ask in the first place.
Dr. Tilman Hickl: Family offices usually have greater flexibility. They can spend more time asking what an asset might become over the next ten or twenty years, rather than how it fits into a predefined investment framework.
That perspective gradually changes the market. Opportunities do not disappear when institutional capital becomes more selective. Quite often, they become attractive to a different group of investors.
REFIRE: H2i's activities are not limited to Germany. You are also involved in residential developments in Canada, particularly in Vancouver. That is still relatively unusual for a German asset manager . How did that come about?
Dr. Tilman Hickl: Sometimes business develops through careful planning, and sometimes through what I would simply call happenstance. I have always believed that unexpected encounters and unexpected opportunities play a much greater role in business than we are sometimes willing to admit.
One element has certainly been my business partner Hans Hammer, who holds both Canadian and German citizenships. That gave us an early opportunity to look more closely at the Canadian residential market particularly in Vancouver.
Today we are involved in several residential developments with a combined development volume of approximately 300 million euros. Canada has become a natural extension of our investment activities, maybe in a way even a second home.
H2i
529-549 East 10th Avenue, Vancouver, Canada
REFIRE: Why Canada in particular?
Dr. Tilman Hickl: Canada combines a transparent legal framework with strong long-term housing demand and a highly profession investment environment. At the same time we realised that our experience in structuring projects, working with institutional investors and managing complex developments translates remarkably well between Germany and Canada. That combination has made Canada a very natural second market for us.
REFIRE: Investment logic ultimately shapes how success itself is measured. The same project can look compelling or difficult to justify, depending on the time horizon and the performance metrics an investor applies. How does that shape investment decisions?
Dr. Tilman Hickl: Many institutional investors need an investment product that generates a certain level of running income. That is partly linked to regulation, partly to internal allocation rules and partly to the obligations they have towards their own beneficiaries or policyholders. If an investor has to generate a certain guaranteed return, the investment must be able to support that logic.
Family offices frequently start from a different premise altogether. Metrics such as IRR still matter, of course, but they are not always the decisive point. Many families are more interested in what happens to their equity over the full life of the investment, and even beyond. They want to understand how much of the capital is preserved, how value is created and what multiple of the original equity may ultimately return.
REFIRE: We sometimes get the impression that investors reveal how they think about an investment long before they begin discussing returns.
Dr. Tilman Hickl: That can make a very real difference in development projects. A project may not produce the kind of early cash flow or reporting profile that an institution needs. Yet it can still be attractive for a family office if the underlying asset is strong, the entry price is reasonable and the long-term value creation is convincing.
REFIRE: It even seems as if today’s market has become as much a question of who is able to pursue an opportunity as of the opportunity itself.
Dr. Tilman Hickl: Some observers assume that family offices simply buy the assets institutional investors leave behind. In practice, the picture is more nuanced.
REFIRE: In what way?
Dr. Tilman Hickl: Many institutional investors are currently unable to pursue certain opportunities because the investment no longer fits their framework. That is very different from concluding that the underlying asset has become less attractive. In many cases, the asset itself has not fundamentally changed. The pool of potential buyers has.
For family offices, that can create an interesting situation. They are often able to acquire assets with comparatively moderate risk at valuations that would have been difficult to achieve only a few years ago. The opportunity does not necessarily arise because the asset has improved. It arises because the competitive environment has changed.
REFIRE: Family offices are often described as a remarkably close-knit community. Recommendations appear to play a very different role than they do across much of the institutional investment market.
Dr. Tilman Hickl: Certainly, family offices are associated with discretion and personal recommendations. In my experience, that description is largely accurate, although perhaps not always for the reasons people assume. That sense of discretion reflects how many entrepreneurial families see themselves. Most never set out to become public figures. They built businesses over many years, often across generations, and continue to think of themselves first and foremost as entrepreneurs, owners and families. Public visibility has simply never been part of that identity.
REFIRE: Perhaps that also explains why recommendations carry so much weight.
Dr. Tilman Hickl: That may well be part of it. Family offices are indeed often perceived primarily as providers of capital. Working closely with entrepreneurial families over many years, however, I have come to see a much more differentiated picture.
Behind every family office are individuals with their own experiences, convictions and ways of making decisions. Capital is only one part of that story. Decisions are ultimately made by people rather than institutions, which is why a recommendation from someone whose judgement is trusted often carries more weight than any presentation or investment memorandum.