Lars Huber has been named sole CEO of the European arm of international developer-investor Hines.
The move ends a 12-month period when Huber shared the top spot at Hines Europe with Hines veteran Michael Topham.
Huber has also joined the international real estate firm's executive committee. 'Together with our strong teams across Europe, I am looking forward to the challenge of further growing our European platform and building on our success over the past years,' Huber said.
He had joined Hines in Berlin in 1996 and later headed the firm's Munich office. In 2005 Huber relocated to London as fund manager and then member of the Hines Capital Markets Group. In 2010 he was promoted CFO of Hines Europe, and then Co-CEO in January 2016 with joint responsibility for all development activity, acquisitions and operations in the region. He has contributed more than $18 bn of investments in Europe.
'Lars has created significant value for Hines and our investors in his two decade career with the firm, and will continue to be an excellent leader for our European region as it grows,' said Jeff Hines, president and CEO of Hines. 'Geographic and product type diversity across Europe is an important link in our global strategy.'
In the last year Huber had shared the CEO position for Hines' European operations with Topham, a company veteran who had held the role for 26 years in Europe. After a forty-year career, Topham is now stepping down as co-CEO, but he will remain as senior advisor to the development side of the European business in Hines' London offices.
'It has been an amazing journey to be with Hines for 42 years, and to create a truly unique platform in 11 countries in Europe, building teams, projects and organisations,' Topham said. 'There is no better person than Lars to take this platform forward and to grow it into an even more successful enterprise for Hines and our investor partners.'
Hines, a privately owned global real estate investment firm, has a presence in 192 cities in twenty countries and has $93 bn (€90 bn) of assets under management.
The company entered the Europea n market in 1991 and since then it has grown its presence to 30 cities in ten countries. Hines now has over €13bn of AUM in France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Spain and the UK. Its European headquarters are in London.
