The British investment company Permira takes over the majority in the Hamburg real estate agent Engel & Völkers. In the deal, the Völkers family and part of the management will keep almost 40 percent of the shares, the companies said in a joint statement on Monday. He wanted to implement his “vision for the digitization of the brand” with Permira, said Christian Völkers. The company founder becomes chairman of the advisory board. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of the year. The parties have agreed not to disclose the purchase price. In financial circles it was said that the company valuation is almost 700 million euros, the majority stake for Permira would then be worth a good 400 million euros.
The brokerage company was founded in 1977 by Dirk Engel. Völkers, at that time a close friend of Engel, joined shortly afterwards in the then still manageable business. After Engels’ suicide in 1986, Völkers renamed the company Engel & Völkers and began to expand massively, also with the help of a franchise model. Today there are more than 800 locations in over 30 countries under the name Engel & Völkers with around 11,000 employees. “Wealthy clients are our specialty,” says Völkers. This year, sales with brokerage fees of over one billion euros are expected, said CEO Sven Odia.
CEO Christian Völkers: His company has 11,000 employees in 30 countries.
(Photo: Christian Schoppe / Engel & Völkers)
Permira manages around 44 billion euros for its investors in 17 funds. The private equity company takes over the majority of companies and changes the business strategy there in order to be able to sell the investments later at a profit, ideally. Engel & Vökers would like to digitize the business with the help of Permira and stimulate growth via the platform. When expanding, the brokerage firm focuses on foreign markets such as Great Britain. So far, it has mainly been represented in classic holiday regions such as Spain.
The international real estate market continues to boom despite the corona pandemic. Prices are rising, especially in large cities and exclusive vacation spots. The low interest rates make financing easier. But many millionaires and billionaires do not need a loan, they have the money for the expensive property on their account. Thanks to the strong brand, Engel & Völkers has “access to high-quality and exclusive sales mandates and has thus been able to establish a leading market position,” said Permira. In the course of digitization, among other things, the offer for real estate consultants should be improved and the technologicalization of internal processes in marketing, mandate acquisition and the recruitment of real estate consultants advanced.