Corestate makes second IVG hire

Oliver Zimper, the global head of transactions at stricken German giant IVG, has joined Zug-based Corestate Capital adding to its recent hire of the firm’s institutional funds managing director Steffen Ricken.


Corestate Capital, the Zug-based private real estate investment firm, has hired Oliver Zimper from Germany’s stricken property company IVG to become its head of commercial real estate.

In his new role Zimper will oversee Corestate’s fresh investments in the commercial sector as well as take charge of asset management for existing assets.

It is the second time that Corestate has hired from IVG which on 20 August said it would file for court protection to reorganize €3.2 billion of debt after negotiations with its principal creditors failed.

The first appointment was announced in June when the firm’s institutional funds managing director Steffen Ricken joined as managing director and head of global capital raising.

Zimper’s role was managing director at IVG Asset Management and he was based in Frankfurt. He was global head of transactions who between 2011 until 2013 and has executed around €5 billion of deals in Europe.

Furthermore, he expanded IVG`s strategy of single asset club deals, said Corestate, which also wants to extend its club deal investments.

Prior to IVG, Zimper was managing partner at Paris-based property company STAM Europe, and head of global acquisitions at DEGI Deutsche Gesellschaft für Immobilienfonds.

Ralph Winter, founder of Corestate said: “Oliver Zimper – together with Steffen Ricken and his team – has shaped IVG’s international investment club deal activities over the past years. Bringing the new team's vast experience in European real estate together with our integrated investment and asset management platform creates an ideal basis for a spree of investments in German and European commercial real estate.”

He added: “Besides our recent activities in distressed property in central Europe, we are now prepared to target anti-cyclical investments in core and value-added transactions across the continent.”

In August, Corestate strengthened its financial firepower by selling a minority stake to Intershop Holding, a listed property company of Switzerland.

Winter added: “Building on our cooperation with Intershop Holding AG of Switzerland, this addition to our management team offers our investors a broader scope of investment opportunities based on a fully integrated platform.”

Corestate’s additional hire of Zimper comes in the wake of two departures. In April, it parted company with chief executive officer Phillip Burns, who joined the company in 2011.

More recently, Ralf Nöcker has left having had some responsibilities for Corestate’s German Commercial Properties Fund that has been transferred to Tristan Capital Partners.