International market activities with around 80 different clients
While ambas has always maintained its home market of Germany as the core market for the company’s activities and this will continue to be the most important sub-market from the management’s point of view, the continuously growing ambas team has been able to support consultancy mandates in ten other European countries to date. These include Austria, Switzerland, England, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Slovakia, Sweden and the Netherlands.
“It took an endless twelve months after the launch of the company, which originally operated under the brand name iMallinvest, before we were able to secure our first three advisory mandates. In the meantime, almost 80 institutional investment houses and privately managed family offices have used the services of our team. We are incredibly proud of this!” recalls company founder Steffen Hofmann. The rebranding of iMallinvest Europe GmbH as ambas Real Estate GmbH was successfully implemented two years ago to reflect the successive expansion of the company’s business model.
Asset management consulting and transaction consulting as core business
The core business of the now eleven-strong team includes providing strategic advice to owners on the continuous value development of their real estate portfolios as well as providing transaction-related advisory services, such as the development of individual property-related sales strategies and associated marketing and negotiation services on behalf of institutional fund managers, project developers or private family offices. Today, ambas also offers corporate consulting in the area of M&A for the planned acquisition or sale of company shares as well as in the structuring of strategic joint venture partnerships.
The volume of transactions handled since the company was founded amounts to more than two billion euros. This includes notable major transactions in the shopping center segment, such as the sale of the MELODY portfolio (2017), the Rhein-Ruhr Zentrum (2018), the Erlangen Arcaden (2019), the Boulevard Berlin (2021) or the Munich PEP shopping center (2023), but also the support of purchase and sale processes for smaller retail parks, retail parks, designer outlet malls, inner-city department stores and mixed-use properties with retail and restaurant tenants.
In asset management for retail properties, ambas has also successfully positioned itself as the market leader for the independent tendering of property and center management services for the management of intensive shopping centers. In the meantime, ambas has managed a tender volume of more than 815,000 square meters of total rental space on behalf of various institutional investor groups. The annual rental volume covered by this amounts to more than €200 million.
The company currently sees particular potential for growth in integrated asset management consulting for banks and financing partners in the event of non-performing real estate loans and the definition of short to medium-term asset management programs for the sustainable stabilization of property values. “There is a lot to do here due to the rapid turnaround in interest rates, which has taken many portfolio holders by surprise at an inopportune time, even in our market segment. So we are getting involved!” says Hofmann.
