UBS expands real estate mandate coverage to institutions

UBS Asset Management's global real estate business has launched a new unit to manage global customised mandates for institutional clients of the Swiss-based company.

Tilman Hickl, the current head of European real estate but excluding Switzerland, will lead the new business area, Global Customized Mandates – Key Institutional Clients (GCM – KIC).

The unit will provide tailored direct real estate investment solutions to institutional clients and is an expansion of the Swiss investor's existing Global Customized Client Mandate (GCCM) business line. GCCM.

'The decision to expand the GCM business reflects the growing demand we have seen from our institutional clients, including sovereign wealth funds, to invest directly into large scale properties and development projects, rather than doing so through real estate investment funds,' said Thomas Wels, UBS Asset Management’s head of global real estate.

Wolfgang Behrendt has been appointed to replace Hickl as head of EMEA real estate, excluding Switzerland. Behrendt joins UBS from Deka Immobilien Investment, where he was responsible for its public real estate funds, totalling €24 bn in gross assets.

Prior to joining Deka in 2007, Wolfgang spent three years at MEAG and has also worked with The Peabody Group, KPMG and Dr. Lübke Immobilien GmbH, a subsidiary of Dresdner Bank, where he started his real estate career in 1993.

New service for institutions
GCCM, now renamed as Global Customized Mandates – Private Wealth Clients (GCM – PWC), caters for ultra-high-net-worth clients. It provides focused investment strategies and asset selection, as well as management of the operational areas of investing, including legal structuring, due diligence and tactical portfolio management.

It is being expanded to offer a complementary service to global key institutional clients, for which UBS will source, structure and execute sizeable transactions, while also managing assets on behalf of clients. Under Hickl’s leadership, GCM – KIC will sit alongside GCM – PWC, which will continue to be led by Benoît Delaby.