AENGEVELT

AENGEVELT approaches its centenary – meaning almost 100 years of real estate innovation The business was founded on 1 April 1910 by Leo Aengevelt. His son, Willi Aengevelt, joined the Company on 1 April 1928 and assumed its management in 1936 at the age of 24. His sons, Dr Lutz and Dr Wulff Aengevelt, joined in 1965 and 1969 respectively, forming the third genenration of the business. In 1969, the sole-trader enterprise was converted into a partnership legal entity with the name AENGEVELT I... mmobilien KG and then converted to AENGEVELT Immobilien GmbH & Co. KG in 2003. In the turbulent times that have made up the company’s 90-year history, its guiding principles have always been innovation and its positioning at the forefront of real estate developments. After 1945, for example, AENGEVELT engaged with great success in the key matters of urban planning, changes of use and shaping city landscapes, particularly in Düsseldorf, which was faced with major space management issues. One of these issues was concerted collaboration in the re-design of Düsseldorf city centre from 1947 onwards, including the Königsallee boulevard, the widening of main city centre thoroughfares such as Schadowstraße, Immermannstraße and Corneliusstraße, the repositioning of the "Tucht-Insel" with Hochstraße and Berliner Allee and also the relocation and settlement of companies engaged in industry and commerce. In 1955 Willi Aengevelt built its former head office on a previous bomb site at what was then Alleestraße 35, today Heinrich-Heine-Allee 35. At the end of the 1960s, AENGEVELT initiated the German version of business parks and in the 1970s designed property-related methodologies for dealing with fallow and underused industrial and commercial land, developing early settlement procedures and starting to deal with contamination, demolition and infrastructure connection management as well as project planning and development. At this time, the company also produced the first commercial rent indices, purchase price indices and return-on-investment indices – an absolute industry first – which have been updated and published on a continuous basis ever since. Another industry innovation which started at the beginning of the 1980s was the ongoing production of representative purchase price indices for detached, semi-detached and three-family dwellings and apartments as well as ROI indices for residential, office and retail properties in and around Düsseldorf in collaboration with the University of Cologne Institute for Housing Law and Housing Economics. Another fine example is the private-sector-only commercial land and infrastructure development methodology developed in 1979. As part of this strategy, which completely excluded public funding, AENGEVELT also designed the necessary associated real estate tools for land preparation, decontamination and demolition management as well as project planning right through to complex project development work, successfully implementing the procedure as a pilot project on two sites owned by Langenfeld Town Council, between Düsseldorf and Cologne. This resulted in a total of approximately 731,000 m² of land being placed, as well as the creation of around 2,000 jobs in 85 businesses. In 1983 the public/private partnership procedure known since then as the "Langenfeld model" was praised in the first National Building Land report as the only financing model for the private sector opening-up of land held in private or public sector ownership. In order to acknowledge the growing internationalisation of the real estate market, AENGEVELT joined the ICPA (International Commercial Property Associates) – now known as TCN (The Commercial Network) – in 1981 as exclusive German partner and is still building on its many international market contacts. At that time the ICPA comprised 81 partner companies with around 3,000 property specialists. In Germany, too, AENGEVELT bundled key synergies and in 1989 founded DIP Deutsche Immobilien-Partner together with three other major real estate service providers. DIP currently has 6 partners, with a total of 15 locations, and operates throughout Germany and also in Austria. At the turn of the year 1989/1990, AENGEVELT exploited the opportunities presented by the fall of the Berlin Wall and was the first West German estate agency to open an office in Berlin. In August 1990, the company published the first comprehensive market report in the history of the Berlin property market. To do this, AENGEVELT commissioned extensive primary data surveys in the eastern part of the city and asked the Humboldt University to draw up a precise inventory of office buildings in the former East Berlin – something for which previously only estimates had existed. Very early on, AENGEVELT recognised the importance of excellent professional training against the backdrop of the constantly growing demands being placed on real estate consulting. For this reason, for decades the company has both required and promoted ongoing professional training for its staff as well as the creation and expansion of corresponding training establishments. AENGEVELT is one of the initiators and founders of the highly respected Chair of Real Estate Economics at the European Business School (EBS), established in March 1990, where members of the company also lecture. At the end of 1990 / beginning of 1991, AENGVELT and DIP were then commissioned by the Federal Government Privatisation Agency (East) to develop a disposal methodology for properties owned by the former state-owned collectives which were now surplus to requirements. To accomplish this extremely complex task, the company was able to draw on its experience from the "Langenfeld model", and the result was the "Berlin model", known in the former East Germany as the “TLG model” but with exactly the same content. This model was then practised with great success by AENGEVELT and its DIP partners in 82 national and international invitations to tender, effectively kick-starting the real estate markets in East Berlin and the former East German provinces. Using the model, total investments of over DM 18.6 billion were secured in over 400 notarised contracts – as well as more than 78,000 jobs. Between 1991 and 1996, the company continued its unhalting expansion and opened offices in Leipzig (1 October 1991), Magdeburg (1 August 1992), Moscow (1 March 1993), Bonn (1 August 1995) and Frankfurt am Main (1 May 1996). Today AENGEVELT is one of the largest and most experienced international property service companies in Germany and employs over 200 real estate specialists. The company offers its clients a range of services stretching from the sale of private and investment properties and commercial lets, placement of undeveloped land, industrial and commercial properties, through to competent advisory services and complex project developments. Added to this is AENGEVELT’s continuous, exemplary research and reporting activities offering real guidance with their comprehensive analysis and research in the relevant market segments which, as hindsight bears witness to, pinpoint relevant industry developments precisely and are available as detailed information foundations for decision-making. In our fast-moving Internet age, the future is posing fresh challenges due to the growing internationalisation of the markets and, as a result of this, constantly increasing demands placed on property consulting. AENGEVELT is optimally placed to meet these challenges: the new head office at Kennedydamm 55 on the corner of Kennedydamm and Rossstraße, which the company moved into in summer 2000, offers the very best in communications and therefore transparency – both within and outside. All in all, this embodies an ideal synthesis of innovation and decades of experience: AENGEVELT serves its clients’ interests by being completely independent of any bank, insurance company or corporation. From the Kennedydamm in Düsseldorf and its four branch offices, AENGEVELT is setting out the future of real estate!More