A day after Corestate Capital announced the entry of a new anchor shareholder and the complete replacement of its supervisory board, the pan-European asset manager has revealed the appointment of a new CEO.
René Parmantier has been named as Corestate's new management board chairman with immediate effect, precluding the appointment of Klaus Schmitt who was to take the helm of the listed company for a three-year term in January.
At the same time, Lars Schnidrig, the current CEO who was due to leave at the end of the year and make way for Schmitt, will remain on board as CFO, the role he held before he became management board chairman.
The changes follow a turbulent few days at Corestate during which a new anchor shareholder, Vestigo, holding close to 10% of the company's share capital, made its entry. That triggered the resignation of the entire supervisory board, including chairman Georg Allendorf.
The new CEO, Parmantier, is a banker who has been CEO of Oddo Seydler Bank AG (formerly Close Brothers Seydler Bank AG) for the past 12 years. During this time, he advised on more than 200 financing and M&A transactions in the German real estate sector.
Schmitt, who was to have assumed the CEO role at Corestate from January, is a veteran German property professional who previously spent 17 years at Patrizia, holding several senior management roles.
Meanwhile, the supervisory board has been replaced with new members, and now comprises Friedrich Munsberg, the former CEO of Dexia Kommunalbank Deutschland; Hermann Wagner, previously a partner at auditing firms KPMG and EY; and Friedrich Oelrich, former board member of DekaBank.
Munsberg takes up the baton as supervisory board chairman, with Wagner assuming the role of deputy chairman and also chairman of the audit committee.
The new oversight board said it would continue to pursue the corporate strategy adopted in 2020, in particular with regard to the reduction of net debt and the further development of the investment management focus towards Core/Core+ assets.
Commenting on the changes, Munsberg said: 'With René Parmantier, we have been able to gain an experienced and dynamic new CEO. He will make a decisive contribution to ensuring that the company accelerates its growth course again in the coming years. I am also very happy that we were able to convince Lars Schnidrig to stay. He will return to his former role as Chief Financial Officer resuming responsibility for such crucial issues as the reduction of net financial debt.'
Parmantier said: 'In my professional career, transactions and financing for real estate companies have always played a major role. I can now bring this experience to Corestate. I see considerable growth potential both in the existing product area of investment management and, above all, in the private debt segment. The market continues very strongly on the transactions side, also valuations getting richer and the mezzanine business to remain strongly and assets under management envisaged to grow.'
Schnidrig, who is now staying on as CFO, remarked: 'In the crisis year 2020, we have already prepared ourselves very well for the expected upswing after the end of the pandemic. In addition to the further development of our product portfolio, this includes above all the initiation of a program to reduce customer-related balance sheet items and thus release liquidity. I am very confident that the new Management Board team will be able to report significant successes in this area in the short term and that we will also be able to make further progress in profitability and sales growth in the new year on the basis of a more efficient cost structure'.
The changes come as Corestate's share price continues to lose ground, falling from €18.45 on 27 November to close at €14.47 on Wednesday, as some market watchers suggest investors are getting jittery as the company is too highly leveraged. The share price peaked at €56 in September 2017 and has been on a steady decline since March this year when shares were trading at around €41.50.
Headquartered in Luxembourg with offices in Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Singapore and Zurich, Corestate Capital was co-founded by Ralph Winter and Thomas Landschreiber in 2006. Both co-founders have since left the company. The asset manager went public on the Frankfurt stock exchange in October 2016 and now has around €28 bn of assets under management and 800 employees.
