Industria living

Industria living
legal form	GmbH
founding	1954
Seat	Frankfurt am Main, Germany
management	Klaus Niewöhner-Pape (Managing Director), Jürgen Hau (Managing Director), Arnaud Ahlborn (Managing Director)
Number of employees	120
sales	66 million euros
Branch	Real estate industry
Website	www.industria-wohnen.de
	As of December 31, 2017

The Industria Wohnen GmbH is a nationwide provider of residential property investments in Germany. The company is based in Frankfurt am Main .

Industria Wohnen is a subsidiary of Degussa Bank AG and part of the Warburg Group. The business activity focuses exclusively on the acquisition, administration and value optimization as well as the sale of residential real estate in the metropolitan regions and metropolitan areas in Germany. The company's main shareholder is Degussa Bank with 94.5% of the shares, while VIGOR Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH from Hamburg has a 5.5% stake in Industria Wohnen.

Industria Wohnen's acquisition strategy is geared towards both existing and new-build apartments. In addition to investing in condominiums for owner-occupation or renting, private investors have also been offered a public real estate fund since 2015. Institutional investors have been investing in various special real estate funds since 2010, which are launched by Industria Wohnen in association with MMWarburg . At the end of 2018, the company had around 120 employees who look after more than 16,000 apartments, assets under management, across Germany. Industria Wohnen's total assets amounted to 245 million euros in the 2018 financial year.

history

Non-profit housing

In 1954, today's Industria Wohnen GmbH was founded in Frankfurt am Main as the “non-profit housing construction Hessian company”. The purpose of the company was the construction and management of company apartments in sufficient numbers for employees of various companies based in the Rhine-Main area, who mainly came from the metalworking industry. The company's share capital was DM 100,000. It was only allowed to conduct business that was permitted by law on non-profit status in residential construction.

Change of name and expansion of the business area

In 1963 the company was renamed “Industria Gemeinnütziger Wohnungsbau Hessischer Unternehmens GmbH”. The new name also went hand in hand with an expansion of the field of business: in addition to publicly subsidized social housing, the company also increasingly focused on tax-privileged housing construction. In this way, it was also possible to offer inexpensive rental apartments to employees whose income exceeded the statutory requirements for social housing. A year later, in 1964, the share capital could be increased from 100,000 to 4.5 million. A net profit of over DM 141,000 was achieved.

Abolition of the non-profit status

In the course of the Tax Reform Act of 1990, the Non-Profit Housing Act was repealed on December 31, 1989. This also meant that the non-profit status of Industria ceased to exist. In November 1990 the partnership agreement was adapted to the new legal situation and the name was changed to "Industria Bau- und Vermietungsgesellschaft mit LIMITED LIABILITY". This enabled the company to erect, look after, manage and manage buildings in all legal and usage forms. Until the mid-1990s, the management, maintenance and modernization of the rental housing stock formed the focus of business activity. The company was able to improve its earnings and liquidity situation through moderate rent increases in accordance with Section 2 of the Rent Height Act and the progressive repayment of older loans, and for the first time was able to procure land and build rental apartments without financial support from third parties.

Group company of Degussa AG

In 1995 the Industria group company of Degussa-Hüls AG Frankfurt. Their majority stake in Industria was taken over in 1997 by Degussa Bank GmbH, which was separated from the Degussa AG industrial branch in 1980. As a result, Industria developed from a traditional housing construction company into a real estate company that, in cooperation with Degussa Bank, converted part of its rental housing stock into owner-occupied apartments and mostly sold it to tenants.

With the management of real estate assets as a service for third parties and the sale of apartments to owner-occupiers and capital investors, the company also acted as a real estate manager for the first time. By the end of the 20th century, Industria increased its profit to almost one million euros. The number of apartments from the rental housing stock rose to 1,500, the contingent of own and third-party properties under property management to a total of 520 units.

Group company of ING-DiBa

In 2002 ING-DiBa Allgemeine Direktbank AG acquired Degussa Bank, with which Industria Bau- und Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH became a group company of ING-DiBa and remained until the end of 2006. At the time of the takeover by the ING-DiBa Group, Industria had expanded its portfolio to over 2000 rental apartments, approx. 350 garages as well as business premises and dormitories, plus over 1000 additional apartments for self-management and third-party management. At the end of 2003, the company acquired 950 company apartments from the car manufacturer Opel.

With the establishment of the two business areas "Renting and Managing" and "Building and Living", Industria implemented not only the pure rental of the housing stock, but also more and more construction projects under the premise "Inexpensive building for young families"

From 2005, the conversion and sale of additionally acquired and rental apartments from the portfolio to tenants and investors became Industria's core business.

Belonging to MMWarburg & CO KGaA

With the sale of Degussa Bank GmbH, Industria also belonged to Hamburg-based MMWarburg & CO KGaA from January 1, 2007. With the sale, ING-DiBa implemented its decision to concentrate on the pure direct banking business. For the MMWarburg Group, the acquisition of Degussa Bank and Industria represented an expansion of its previous business area, in which Industria expanded its own core services: As a product producer in the residential property class, Industria completely covered the entire range of services in the residential portfolio management for the first time. The two business areas Asset Management and Property Management were established. In 2009, the number of employees rose to 35, who looked after around 5000 properties and generated a balance sheet profit of around 7 million euros. In 2016, Industria Bau und Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH changed its name to Industria Wohnen GmbH. Since Industria Wohnen has been a subsidiary of Degussa Bank GmbH with headquarters in Frankfurt am Main since 1997, the affiliations to the individual group companies, which have changed over the years, had hardly any significant impact on the company's business philosophy.

At the beginning of 2010, the company launched its first real estate special fund for institutional investors such as insurance companies, pension funds and pension funds, as an asset manager in association with MMWarburg, "Wohnen Deutschland". A total of seven further real estate special funds for institutional investors followed, as well as in 2015 the open-ended real estate fund “Fokus Wohnen Deutschland” for private and semi-professional investors. In 2018, the full portfolio of the first special AIF “Wohnen Deutschland”, which was originally launched with an original target term of 10 years, was sold in an international bidding process.

As of December 31, 2018, the assets of institutional and private investors that Industria Wohnen manages in the real estate special funds and the open-ended real estate mutual fund amounted to 2.2 billion euros. A total of 1.5 billion of this was deposited with investors' equity. With its two-year return history, the mutual fund received a full rating from the Scope rating agency for the first time in the 2017/18 financial year, which was rated a +.

At the end of 2018, Industria Wohnen launched its eighth special real estate fund "Wohnen Deutschland VI" in cooperation with IntReal International Real Estate Kapitalverwaltungsgesellschaft mbH. The fund's target investment volume is EUR 500 million. Investments are mainly made in new building developments. The company is thus shifting the focus of its strategic direction towards forward deals. Projects are to be acquired that will create affordable living space in the well-developed area of major German cities in the coming years.

Living Circle Düsseldorf

In 2015, Industria Wohnen acquired the project development of the Living Circle in Düsseldorf for the special real estate fund "Wohnen Deutschland II" as part of a forward deal. The former “Thyssen Trade Center” in Düsseldorf-Grafenberg was converted into a residential complex with 343 rental apartments in the mid-range rental price segment, with a voluntary rental price cap for one fifth of the apartments. The “Living Circle” is considered an exemplary conversion project in Germany and was awarded the “Real Estate Manager Award” in 2017 and the “German Builder Award” in 2018.

social commitment

With the annual benefit event “Business meets Charity”, Industria Wohnen supports a socially committed association or a humanitarian project together with business partners and customers. In addition, the company supports the voluntary commitment of its employees through a donation program with the “Industria Wohnen hilft!” Initiative. As the initiator of the "Housing Academy Frankfurt", Industria Wohnen opens up opportunities for young people with a migration background to take up professional training in the real estate industry.