German debt boutique Caerus Debt Investments is beefing up its management with the hire of Bernhard Berg to the new position of chief operating officer.
Berg, who joins from aamundo Holding, has held senior positions at Corpus Sireo where he was CEO, IVG, Provinzial Rheinland, R+V Versicherungsgruppe and Generali Deutschland, where he was responsible for capital investments in real estate.
Caerus, which was founded and is headed by Michael Morgenroth, lost a team last year which left to set up a rival debt investing business.
CEO Morgenroth said: ‘In Bernhard Berg, we have succeeded in gaining a leading veteran of the German finance and real estate industry for our company. His unique cross-disciplinary and cross-sector expertise and experience make him the ideal person to develop apposite investment strategies for our clients in the current market environment and to further develop the expansion of CAERUS.’
Caerus finances real estate projects and transactions in the DACH region and the Benelux countries, committing loans of €2.3 bn since 2014.
Berg’s primary responsibility will be client relationships and product structuring. He will also sit on the investment committee where Patrick Züchner is CIO.
The five-strong team which quit last June was led by Lars Armgart. In September they set up Aukera Real Estate with an initial mandate from a German life insurance company structured as a Luxembourg fund which is open to other investors.
Since then, Aukera Real Estate has made two new investments totalling around €162 mln through the credit fund, increasing the fund volume to €471 mln. The investor contributed three assets from its own portfolio to the fund with a loan volume of around €270 mln euros.
