GSW appoints joint chief executives

GSW Immobilien has appointed joint CEOs shortly after a rival firm launched a takeover bid for the German listed residential property company.

GSW's supervisory board named Jörg Schwagenscheidt and Andreas Segal to jointly run the Berlin appartment owner on Friday.

The first major agenda item the joint CEOs will face could be their last as bosses of GSW. On 20 August this year, Deutsche Wohnen, another German listed home owner, launched a €1.75 bn all-share takeover offer for GSW.

The appointments also come two months after the previous CEO Bernd Kottmann and the former chairman of the supervisory board Eckart John von Freyend tendered their resignations. They were forced out after Dutch pension fund PGGM tabled motions of no confidence in them due to concerns about how Kottmann was appointed in April.

Claus Wisser, the current chairman of the supervisory board, did not mention the resignations or takeover offer during the announcement of the appointments of GSW's new leadership structure.

In a statement, he said: 'In a process lasting several weeks, we intensively considered various external and internal solutions with the help of an outside human resources consultant. We finally came to the conclusion that there is no better solution than dual leadership. This was also consistent with the recommendation of the outside, professional human resources consultant.'

Wisser continued: 'In recent years, Schwagenscheidt and Segal were responsible for the success of GSW’s IPO and have built up confidence on the capital market and among the staff. Over the last few weeks they have proved that they can excellently implement GSW’s growth course and its internal organisation working side by side. We look forward to their further cooperation and are confident that Schwagenscheidt and Segal will continue to steer successfully the fate of GSW.'