By Matthias Inverardi and Tom Sims
DUESSELDORF (Reuters) – Vonovia, Germany’s largest landlord, is unexpectedly swapping out its long-serving chief executive as it seeks to recover from an industry-wide real estate slump.
The company said late on Tuesday that the technology executive Luka Mucic would succeed Rolf Buch as Vonovia’s CEO by the end of 2025 in a “mutually agreed” contract termination.
The swap in leadership at Germany’s top-listed property company comes after three consecutive years of losses adding up to more than 8 billion euros ($9.08 billion).
The nation’s property sector has been mired in its worst crisis in decades, marked by insolvencies, stalled sales, falling prices and a decline in construction jobs.
Buch, one of the most prominent individuals in Germany’s property industry, has been at Vonovia’s helm for more than 12 years.
Mucic has been the finance chief of Vodafone since 2023. Previously, he was finance chief and chief operating officer at the German tech giant SAP, Germany’s most valuable company.
Buch has forecast better times ahead, predicting a return to net profit in 2025 with a stabilization of property values.
The company’s first-quarter figures, also published late on Tuesday, showed a 15% increase in adjusted pretax profit to 479 million euros.
Buch, whose contract was due to end in 2028, said change was better when the company was on an upward trajectory rather than a downward one.
“I believe now is the right time,” he told journalists on Wednesday.
($1 = 0.8815 euros)
(Reporting Matthias Inverardi in Duesseldorf, Anusha Shah in Bengaluru and Tom Sims in Frankfurt; editing by Alan Barona, Rachel More and Rashmi Aich)
