European hotel specialist The Student Hotel Group (TSH) has hired Commerz Real’s boss Andreas Muschter as chief financial officer.
Muschter, 47, will join the expanding hospitality business from next week working from TSH’s headquarters in Amsterdam. At Commerz Real, which he first joined in 2009, he helped turn the business into one of Germany’s largest international investment managers for real assets with around €34 bn in assets under management. He was instrumental in the €2 bn Millennium portfolio acquisition, last year.
Muschter's role at Commerz Real also encompassed HausInvest, the second largest German open-ended real estate fund, with 800,000 investors and assets under management of about €16 bn.
Muschter, who was appointed CEO in 2013 and confirmed for a further five-year mandate in 2018, also developed Commerz Real’s institutional investment products and tailored equipment leasing concepts and oversaw the transformation of the company into a sustainable digital asset manager.
Commerz Real has appointed Johannes Anschott as interim CEO to replace Muschter, while it searches for a successor.
Charlie MacGregor, CEO and founder of TSH, said Muschter’s management calibre and experience will be 'invaluable' at a challenging point for the alternatives sector, as it recovers from the impact upon trade of the Covid-19 pandemic.
‘The moment Charlie MacGregor and I started talking I knew that TSH offered a fantastic opportunity to join an innovative, customer-focused company, which is successfully bridging the real estate and hospitality markets, with its integrated operator, developer and investor model and community based approach to urban regeneration,’ said Muschter.
He added: ‘Culturally and operationally, TSH is the perfect next step for me. Joining a young, entrepreneurial and sustainable business, where I can draw upon my experience within a major financial institution, offers a very real test of teamwork and skills, all the more as we adapt to a new way of operating. Having achieved my personal goals at Commerz Real, my new challenge is to help shape TSH’s future and deliver on its ambitions.’
TSH has been expanding aggressively across Europe with over 5,000 rooms in 14 European locations: Amsterdam City and West, Berlin, Dresden, The Hague, Vienna, Groningen, Eindhoven, Maastricht, Rotterdam, Florence and Paris, as well as two TSH Campus sites in Barcelona – student-only residences.
MacGregor added: ‘Despite the unprecedented disruption to normal business from the Covid-19 pandemic, our hotels have remained open across Europe, allowing us to be ready to welcome domestic and international guests back as we slowly return to operating in a post-Covid world. We’re confident our hybrid hospitality model and asset heavy investment structure can adapt as the industry regains its footing in coming months.
Its pipeline of new hotels includes Bologna and Delft both opening in 2020. Madrid, San Sebastian, Barcelona Provencal, Paris La Villette, Toulouse, Lisbon Carcavelos, Porto, Rome and two more in Florence opening in 2022 and Turin planned for 2023 – representing circa 6,000 additional rooms.
