REAL ESTATE - Dick van den Oever, a former senior consultant at consulting firm Hewitt Associates in Amsterdam, has taken on a role at Dutch real estate firm Berckheijde.

He’s taken over the operational management and a part of the shares of Berckheijde Vastgoed Beleggingen BV.

Van den Oever, who joined the firm’s Amsterdam office as senior consultant in 2002, left early last month for his new role with Wiegert van der Meij, focusing on real estate investments in future also for institutional investors.

The firm has a large client base of private real estate investors, but it wants to expand into the institutional market and is already in discussion with some investors in Holland and Belgium.

Hewitt has also lost Eddy Bannet, investment consulting practice leader in Amsterdam.

Hewitt spokesman Michiel Cleij said Bannet wanted to change direction as “in his view his personal ambitions did not fully agree with Hewitt’s international ambitions, he is not re-orientating himself in order to see which player does fit the most with his personal ambitions”.

Cleij stresses though that both Van den Oever and Bannet left the firm amicably, and if necessary the firm will even call upon the two former employees.

The firm has not appointed successors yet but will do if the right person comes along.

“Because we have an international network, there is no acute need for successors,” says Cleij. He explained that the firm’s Dutch investment team practice is linked with its European and Global practices.