Wolfram H. Krüger
German Head of Real Estate | Notary, Frankfurt
“I specialise in large-scale, pan-European portfolio transactions. I take a commercial, pragmatic approach when assisting clients to complete their most significant deals, offering the benefit of my longstanding experience, certainty in judgment and an ability to explain complex issues clearly.”
Overview
Professional experience
Education and qualifications
Published works
Overview
Wolfram leads the firm’s real estate practice in Germany. He has extensive experience in advising investors, banks, insurance companies, institutional funds and developers on real estate transactions across Europe, with a particular focus on portfolio transactions. Wolfram’s expertise spans the corporate, finance and tax elements of deals. He also advises on restructuring in cases involving distressed assets.
Wolfram has helped to develop some of the market’s most innovative structures, including the joint portfolio sale by three funds with diverse histories, cultures and regulatory regimes.
Wolfram has spent time on secondment at the firm’s London office, broadening his real estate experience, and is an active member of the firm’s Asia initiative, which aims to deepen the firm’s relationship with Asian clients.
Work Highlights
Wolfram has led on many of the market’s major real estate transactions. These include advising:
- Triuva (formerly, IVG Institutional Funds): (formerly, IVG Institutional Funds): advising on the sale of a pan-European portfolio of 30 properties in six jurisdictions in a structured bidding process.
- Deka, INTERNOS and Triuva (formerly, IVG Institutional Funds): advising on their joint sale of a pan-European portfolio of 39 properties in nine jurisdictions involving shares and assets transfers, the first time that three different regulated fund institutions had sold a portfolio together.
- Cerberus: advising on the acquisition of the German Woolworth’s high-street portfolio (involving 111 stores) in a sale and leaseback deal, the subsequent restructuring of the portfolio arising out of the tenant’s insolvency, the refinancing and the eventual sale.
- Cerberus: advising on the acquisition of the mixed-use Rebound portfolio out of Luxembourg administration and on the acquisition of the Phoenix portfolio in Germany, each arising out of insolvency and involving restructuring and sale.
- CBRE Investment Management: advising on the acquisition of a portfolio of 1,350 residential units in Germany from Vonovia for €560m, the quarter "Bricks" in Berlin; the office buildings “Pontishaus” in Munich and "Telekom Hauptstadtrepräsentanz" in Berlin, an innovative, state-of-the-art residential project development at Südkreuz Berlin and on the acquisition of a logistics portfolio from Hillwood
- GARBE: advising on the acquisition of the seed portfolio for over €1bn for its newly launched pan-European logistics fund.
- Tishman Speyer, a U.S. real estate building and operating company:advising on the letting of TaunusTurm and OMNITURM skyscrapers in the Frankfurt banking district, as well as several U.S. banks on the leases of their German headquarters.
Rankings
- Wolfram is ranked as one of only nine "Thought Leaders" by Who is Who Legal and acclaimed as leading expert in JUVE, Chambers and Handelsblatt rankings.
Professional experience
Wolfram is a member of the Urban Land Institute and the German-American Lawyers Association.
Wolfram advised pro bono a number of different institutions in Frankfurt, including the Frankfurt Episcopalian church.
Wolfram is a regular contributor to Immobilien Zeitung, a weekly specialist journal for the German real estate sector.
Education and qualifications
Wolfram studied law and economics at the Universities of Bayreuth, Fribourg (in Switzerland) and Bonn. During his legal training he, inter alia, completed stages at the German-Thai Chamber of Commerce, and an international law firm in Bangkok, Thailand.
Wolfram speaks German, English, French and Thai.