GARBE Institutional Capital expands to CEE and appoints Ben Maudling as Regional Head

Real estate investment manager GARBE Institutional Capital, headquartered in Hamburg (Germany), is expanding into Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Managing and developing retail, office and residential real estate assets, the company will initially focus on the Polish and Czech markets. With its commitment to the CEE region, GARBE Institutional Capital provides German institutional investors with access to high-quality real estate investments in economically prospering metropolitan areas in the eastern part of the European Union. The new CEE business is based in Prague and headed by Ben Maudling as Managing Director, Head of CEE.

“Between 2014 and 2019 real estate investments in CEE almost doubled. We expect this rapid growth to continue in the coming years with the residential sector being particularly interesting,” says Ben Maudling. “We will start operations in Poland and the Czech Republic as these are the largest and most liquid markets in CEE and offer attractive risk-return profiles for investors from the DACH region.”

Ben Maudling has lived and worked in CEE since 1992 and formerly worked for Invesco, Palmer Capital and Savills in senior positions across the region.

Michiel Dubois, Managing Director at GARBE Institutional Capital, says: “We are delighted that Ben has joined us. He is one of the most experienced professionals in the CEE region with an excellent personal track record. I am convinced that his knowledge and expertise will enable us to establish a strong and highly reputable presence in this area.”

GARBE Institutional Capital is a fully-integrated management platform operating along the entire property value chain of development, fund, asset and property management in various European markets. It initiates, structures, co-invests in and manages real estate investments on behalf of its institutional clients. The company’s strategic approach covers all risks profiles, including core, core-plus, value-add as well as opportunistic. For GARBE Institutional Capital, the new office in Prague is the second branch outside its domestic market, complementing the Dutch business based in Amsterdam.

Christopher Garbe, CEO of the family-owned GARBE Group, adds: “Our logistics and light industrial division has already made a successful market entry into Central and Eastern Europe. Now, through GARBE Institutional Capital, we are also providing our investors with access to attractive investment opportunities in residential and commercial real estate in this region. We are thus meeting the increasing demand for diversified investments in stable European growth regions. The development and investment management activities support each other well and both benefit from the synergies of our overall platform.”