DREF strengthens management with three senior hires

Deutsche Real Estate Funds (DREF), the Luxembourg-based student housing investment manager, has strengthened its management team with three new hires.

Alexsander Obradovic has been appointed chief investment officer. In this role, he will be responsible for structuring, financing and the execution of transactions, as well as for DREF’s overall investment strategy.

Michael Wolschon has taken on the role of chief operating officer and Harald Baumann has taken on responsibility for the asset and property management of student residences in Germany as chief real estate officer.

Growing the business
'In the past year, we’ve already achieved enormous growth and in 2016 we plan to ramp up our efforts further as we continue to extend our leading position as owner and operator of student accommodation facilities in Germany. With these additions to our leadership team, we are ideally positioned to achieve these objectives,' said Felix Bauer, chief executive officer and chief strategic officer at Deutsche Real Estate Funds Advisor.

Obradovic has extensive investment management experience, having worked at several private equity companies including JER Partners, 3i and Goldman Sachs. During his career, he has worked on the execution of more than €1.5 bn of transactions and managed more than €2.5 bn of assets. He first worked with DREF’s parent company, the Bauer Group, in 2006.

In his career Wolschon has managed more than five billion euros of assets. He joined DREF from IVG Asset Management where he was head of region south. While at IVG, he was responsible for portfolio development and property strategy development, as well as control of external property management and asset management services.

Previously, as head of real estate management with Strabag Property & Facility Services, he managed about 6,000 properties and more than 100 employees. Prior to that, he managed the Berlin office of DB Real Estate Investment (Deutsche Bank Group). Moreover, he is the founder and proprietor of the asset management and transaction consultancy Michael Wolschon Consulting.

Baumann’s experience in the strategic asset management of residential and commercial portfolios, portfolio development, credit structuring and property purchases comes from having held leading positions at Hudson Advisors Germany and Hypo Real Estate Bank. Most recently, he was director of asset management and Munich branch head at Hudson Advisors Germany, where he was responsible for several real estate loan portfolios. In total, he has managed assets worth more than €7 bn.