Atrium appoints Hakert as COO

Atrium European Real Estate, the Vienna-listed shopping centre property company formerly known as Meinl European Land, has announced the appointment of Nils-Christian Hakert as Chief Operating Officer.

Dr. Hakert joins Atrium from Unibail-Rodamco, the pan-European commercial property investor, where he had worked since 2005 as retail director of Central Europe.

Commenting on the appointment, Rachel Lavine, chief executive officer of Atrium, said: 'Since I officially took up my role as CEO of Atrium I have maintained that one of my key priorities was to appoint a strong executive management team, which has a great deal of experience in European real estate development and investment and shopping centres, in particular.'

'We are at an advanced stage of negotiations with a number of candidates for the other positions, including, chief financial officer, chief development officer and chief technology officer and I hope to be able to make further announcements accordingly in the near future,' she added.

Atrium is a real estate investment and development company whose primary focus is on retail assets in Central and Eastern Europe, where it operates in 11 countries. At 30 June 2008, Atrium had 160 operating investment properties with a market value of just over EUR 2 bn and a portfolio of development projects with an expected investment requirement of EUR 3.3 bn, of which EUR 700 mln had been spent.