DLJ Real Estate duo launch European firm

Two ex-DLJ principals are branching out on their own with a firm called Laurus Property Partners dedicated to higher risk-return deals in Germany.


Two former professionals at Credit Suisse’s former private equity real estate platform DLJ Real Estate Capital Partners have emerged with a new firm in Europe. The company, called Laurus Property Partners, has been established by Matthias Dahmen, who was previously an investment manager at DLJ, which spun out from Credit Suisse and last year decided to close down its European office, and Oliver Richter, who also was at DLJ as well as Merrill Lynch.

Announcing the creation of the new investment management business, Laurus said it would be headquartered in London with offices in Frankfurt and Munich, and that it had identified a source of capital for “higher risk-return” transactions in German commercial real estate. 

The company said opportunities for value-add and opportunistic deals were being driven by the deleveraging of European financial institutions, the volume of near-term mortgage loan maturities, a general lack of liquidity in the market for complex and structured real estate ventures, plus “the widening yield differential” between core assets and secondary or tertiary properties.

The announcement continued that Laurus plans to raise equity capital and mezzanine debt for real estate investments via a network of investors that were looking for partnerships or joint ventures with local firms. In addition, the firm said it had access to co-investment funds that could be invested alongside its investors.