• Corporate strategy for growth and long-term value creation in Germany implemented under the leadership of Tina Störmer in newly created holding company
  • New Executive Board takes over management of all Swiss Life Asset Managers business areas in Germany


Swiss Life Asset Managers adapts its German organisation to the higher volume of business. Under the leadership of Tina Störmer, CEO of Swiss Life Asset Managers in Germany, an experienced Executive Board team will steer the entire real estate and securities business in a newly founded company. This company functions as a holding entity for the companies belonging to Swiss Life Asset Managers in Germany and will have its headquarters in Frankfurt am Main. The Executive Board is comprised of central business areas and corporate functions with an eye to even greater orientation to customer needs.

Tina Störmer says: “In the past months we have placed our strategic reorientation on a stable footing. Now we are starting to implement our growth targets, which we aim to achieve through attractive products with stable long-term value creation and high service quality for our clients. To intensify cooperation with our German company entities and ensure a high degree of continuity in leadership, we are staffing our new Executive Board in Germany with experienced colleagues from our local companies.”

Anett Barsch, Managing Director of the project development business at Corpus Sireo, will drive Swiss Life Asset Managers' development business in Germany as Head Real Estate Project Development. At present, some 43 000 square metres of office space are being developed by way of the subsidiary Corpus Sireo. In addition, around 2500 units are going up across Germany as part of residential project development. Furthermore, the investment portfolio of the subsidiary BEOS, a specialist in corporate real estate, offers over a million square metres of potential densification, among a total of 3.3 million square metres of rentable space as at 31 December 2018.

Christine Bernhofer will take over as Chief Operating Officer the development and management of both regulated and unregulated fund products and vehicles for real estate and securities investments under German law. Swiss Life Asset Managers in Germany currently has around EUR one billion in assets under management in seven funds and investment vehicles for institutional and private clients. Swiss Life Asset Managers would like to use Swiss Life KVG mainly as a fund platform for future products in Germany, as well as its expertise in the logistics/light industrial and healthcare use types. What is more, a European competency centre for healthcare properties is to be created in Germany and in Luxembourg.

As Head Proprietary Insurance Asset Management (PAM), Michael Essl is charged with assets of the German insurance units. He has been Chief Investment Officer Germany at Swiss Life Asset Managers since May 2018. The investment strategy has a risk-based focus intended to ensure long-term stable investment results, maintain the interest margin and protect the solvency of the insurance business. Assets under management for the insurance business in Germany currently amount to some EUR 19 billion.

Michael Hennig becomes Head Sales and takes on the sales function on the Executive Board of Swiss Life Asset Managers in Germany, where he has served in a managing position since March 2019. He will now be charged with the distribution and marketing of all Swiss Life Asset Managers real estate products and securities investment solutions in the German market. Growth drivers include, in addition to the business with investment-based solutions in the area of occupational pensions, financing of existing and new products as well as the digitalisation of customer solutions and sales channels. New products are to be developed particularly in the opportunistic and value-added investment segment.

Christian Schmid will take over the function of Chief Financial Officer effective 1 September 2019. He comes to Swiss Life Asset Managers from the Munich Re Group, the world’s largest reinsurer, where he spent eight years as CFO running the company’s international health insurance business.

The new Head Real Estate Asset Management is Hendrik Staiger, board member of BEOS for southern Germany, acquisitions and corporate solutions. He will be charged with structuring, managing, marketing, purchasing and expanding real estate portfolios for all client groups. Swiss Life Asset Managers currently manages real estate assets Europe-wide worth more than EUR 81 billion, of which over EUR 23 billion in Germany. This volume is to be augmented in the years to come, notably by way of investments for proprietary insurance business or customer mandates, as well as through co-investments. The cross-border cooperation of Swiss Life Asset Managers is also relevant in this regard, and is to be bolstered from Germany with the competency centres for logistics/light industrial and healthcare located there. Swiss Life Asset Managers Germany is bundling its purchasing expertise into a centrally functioning acquisitions team.

Stefan Mächler, CIO of Swiss Life Group, says: “Considering the economic conditions and our local strength, Germany is our most important core market. We would like to actively shape the constant change arising from the challenging but also opportunity-laden market environment to the benefit of our customers and employees. With our management team in Germany and the market units there, we will be able to further expand our position in the German real estate sector, along with our securities activities.”

Changes at Corpus Sireo Real Estate

As part of the organisational development in Germany, Ralph Günther has ended his ad interim leadership of CORPUS SIREO Real Estate GmbH, Cologne, a real estate company of Swiss Life Asset Managers. He will return to his function as Advisor to the Swiss Life Group CIO Stefan Mächler. In addition, Michael Westerhove, member of the Corpus Sireo Executive Board, has left the company. Anett Barsch and Martin Eberhardt are now charged with the operational management of Corpus Sireo. 

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