Newmark has been in talks with veteran brokers to open an office in Germany.
The US brokerage firm has talked with Piotr Bienkoswki and Marcus Lütgering, said three market sources. Bienkowski was chief executive of BNP Paribas Real Estate in Germany between 2012 and 2021. He began his career as an intern in real estate economics at Müller International, which later became BNP Paribas Real Estate Germany, and became managing director in 2003, before becoming chief executive in 2012. After BNP Paribas Real Estate, he spent a two-year stint at investor ABG.
Lütgering became an independent adviser in 2022 following a career of nearly 16 years at consultancy JLL. After a year of being team leader, office investments in Munich, he became the branch manager, a post he held for two years. Between 2010 and November 2022, he headed up JLL’s office investment team for the whole of Germany.
Newmark is approaching Germany in similar fashion to France. In March, the firm announced the opening of an office in Paris by hiring industry veterans François Blin and Emmanuel Frénot to lead a team to initially focus on capital markets. In the UK, by contrast, it has bought existing businesses Harper Dennis Hobbs, BH2 and Gerald Eve.
The timing of the expansion has raised eyebrows in the industry as all brokerage firms have been suffering from a sharp drop in transaction volumes since interest rates started to rise in February 2022. However, Newmark chief executive Barry Gosin dismissed any concerns about the timing in an interview with CoStar News in March. The opportunity is big, Gosin said, because during downturns, "professionals are doing less, they have more time, and they can look around and consider. It’s much harder to hire talent when everyone’s really busy" 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
In the same interview, during the Mipim trade fair in Cannes, Gosin said that he expected to have covered most of Europe in the next 12 months and the globe over the next 18 to 24 months. Last week, Newmark posted double-digit gains in property sales and lending volumes, leading Gosin to declare the real estate industry is on the rebound.
Germany may prove a hard nut to crack. Consultants are struggling as investment volumes are down. They have fallen to 46% below the 10-year average, according to BNP Paribas Real Estate. However, transactions have been picking up since the start of the year. In the first half of 2024, investment volumes rose to €12.2 billion compared with €9.1 billion during the same period a year earlier.
Brokerage firms have responded with restructurings. In November, Savills abolished its regional and specialist teams and integrated them in national teams. The reorganisation led to the departure of three directors. CBRE last month announced that two of its senior brokers, Fabian Klein and Peter Schreppel, are leaving the firm after more than two decades. Earlier that month, Colliers’ head of international capital, Christian Kadel, left the firm. In November, its Germany chief executive, Matthias Leube, left the firm after seven years in the job. In May, Cushman & Wakefield overhauled its German business and started negotiations with some employees about their future with the firm.
Bienkowski declined to comment, while Lütgering and Newmark did not respond to requests for comment.