Ulrich Steinmetz has been appointed as head of real estate transactions at Frankfurt-headquartered asset manager DWS. Christian Baecker has taken over Steinmetz’s responsibility as head of portfolio management real estate retail, in particular for the German real estate retail funds business. Ronen Ribak has been appointed to a newly created position as head of value-add real estate for Europe. Steinmetz, who joined DWS in 2002 covering real estate transactions for North America, South America, Asia Pacific and the UK, has managed DWS’s open and closed-ended real estate retail funds business in Germany since October 2008.
DWS has seen strong growth in its open-ended real estate retail funds in recent years, almost tripling the net asset value from 5.2 billion euro in 2008 to 15.1 billion in 2023. In his new role, Steinmetz will drive the long-term strategic focus of DWS’s European transactions function. Baecker joined DWS’s real estate platform in 2005 and has managed a globally invested open-ended real estate retail fund since 2016. Ribak has played a critical role in establishing DWS’s centralised European real estate transactions team overseeing a total transaction volume of around 25 billion euro.
“I’m very pleased to make these key appointments within our growing Europe real estate franchise,” said Clemens Schaefer, head of real estate for APAC and Europe at DWS. “We have a significant depth of experience and leadership capabilities across the platform which has enabled us to promote from within the organisation.”
