Press release

Commerz Real appoints Nicole Arnold to management board

• Siegfried Eschen returning to Commerzbank

Commerz Real has appointed Nicole Arnold (42) to the board of managing directors; she took up the position as of 1 January 2023. As the real assets subsidiary of Commerzbank announced, she is succeeding Siegfried Eschen, who has returned to Commerzbank.

Nicole Arnold has more than 15 years’ experience in the structuring and management of a wide variety of investment vehicles for national and international investors and eight years’ management experience at renowned asset managers. She is joining the company from BNP Paribas Real Estate Investment Management, where she had held the positions of Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer since January 2020. Prior to this she had spent around seven years at Universal Investment, ultimately as Director Real Estate Investment Management. The graduate in business administration began her professional career in 2004 at the shopping centre operator and project developer ECE Projektmanagement in Hamburg.

“In Nicole Arnold we have been able to secure an experienced manager and proven expert in investment and asset management, in particular to serve our institutional investors,” says Manfred Knof, the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Commerz Real. “I am convinced that she will lend valuable impetus to the growth path of Commerz Real as a leading provider for real estate and renewables.” As a member of the management board Arnold is responsible, among other things, for institutional and mandate business. Here Commerz Real currently manages about two billion euros in the fields of real estate and renewable energies through various investment vehicles.

In Nicole Arnold we have been able to secure an experienced manager and proven expert in investment and asset management, in particular to serve our institutional investors.

Manfred Knof, the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Commerz Real

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“I would like to thank Siegfried Eschen for the excellent collaboration in a spirit of mutual trust,” says Henning Koch, the chief executive officer of Commerz Real. “His experience and expertise made a significant contribution to our company safely negotiating the consequences of the pandemic and market turbulence, and accelerating the development of new business, and in particular with the Klimavest impact fund. I personally came to greatly value his dedication and commitment above all in a period of transition with a smaller management board.” Siegfried Eschen came to Commerz Real in June 2021. Prior to this he was the head of the competence centre Real Estate Corporate Clients in the Corporate Clients segment at Commerzbank for seven years, a unit which he devised and developed from 2014 onwards at the behest of the Group board of management. Siegfried Eschen has headed a number of corporate units in the field of commercial real estate financing in the Commerzbank Group at branch and divisional level since 1993, among other things at Eurohypo AG. “I wish him all the very best in his new tasks at Commerzbank,” adds Koch.

I would like to thank Siegfried Eschen for the excellent collaboration in a spirit of mutual trust.

Henning Koch, the chief executive officer of Commerz Real