Aareal Award of Excellence - Blog

KL: Welcome Mr. Müller! I’m very pleased to talk to the organizer of a congress with over 600 participants. Not an easy job for a student!

CM: Well, thanks for having me here. Yes, it was not so easy. We faced a lot of problems, which were difficult to handle, during the organizational process but in the end everything worked out. Nevertheless we had a lot of fun and many moments I’ll never forget!

KL: Like…

CM: Like the last day before the congress. At that day our caterer called and told us that he can´t come and serve food. This was quite a heart attack for all of us. But in the end, it turned out to be a huge misunderstanding and everything ran perfectly.

KL: Why do EBS students organize such a huge real estate congress and not professionals? By the way, how old are you?

CM: It´s part of the EBS Bachelor program that students in their first year organize themselves in the so called “resorts”. One of these resorts is “EBS Real Estate” which has to plan and host the yearly EBS Real Estate Congress. But without the help and advice from the EBS Real Estate Management Institute it wouldn’t be possible to have such a great event every year.

For us, the students, this congress and the organization process is really a huge challenge but also a great opportunity to learn and to gain experience. Most of us are between 19 and 23 years old; I´m 22 years old.

KL: But shouldn’t the same team organize the congress every year? What is the reason to have juniors arrange the event?

CM: Yes, to have the same team every year would make things easier. But we want to give every student in his/her first semester the chance to develop and grow by organizing the congress, and we want them to realize their own ideas. This may be the additional charm of our congress that other congresses don´t have.

Nevertheless, we see the problem. Right now, we model an advisory board that should promote and guide the new students.

KL: What are the things that need to be done first or to put it another way, what things need to be always beard in mind?

(more…)

Within the framework of the first speech on 28 April, Dr. Peter Schörner, CEO, Evonik Immobilien GmbH, will focus on the business model of indirect investments in residential real estate. With the background of the Evonik Real Estate Division’s goal of an initial public offering, this lecture promises a differentiated insight into this market segment. Jerry Meyer, founding partner of Tishman Speyer, will discuss the topic of creativity with the participants of the Rheingau Real Estate Talks ob 17 May 2010.

The attendance is free. Both events take place at the EBS Campus, Schloss Reichartshausen in Oestrich-Winkel, at 7.30 p.m. Please register via gespraeche@ebs-remi.de.

We’re looking forward to meeting you at EBS!

The video shows the Aareal Award ceremony on 26 February, 2010.

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People in the video: Dr. Wolf Schumacher (Chairman of the Board Aareal Bank AG), Paavo Monkkonen (Winner), Thies Lindenthal (Winner), Oliver Lehmann (Winner), Prof. Dr. Nico Rottke (Executive Director EBS Real Estate Management Institut), Charlie Müller (Chairman EBS Real Estate Department) and Olaf Hütten (Publishing Director “Immobilien Manager Verlag”).

And again some more pictures. Next week we’ll post video interviews with the three winners.

Tech stuff and technician

Speaker Dr. Wolf Schumacher, Chairman of the Management Board Aareal Bank AG

:-)

Cameraman vs. Speaker

Dr. Wolf Schumacher, Prof. Dr. Nico Rottke, Charlie Müller, Olaf Hütten

Break

Panel with discussion on podium

We proudly inform you that the winners of the 3rd Aareal Award of Excellence in Real Estate Research 2010 are:

Master-/Bachelor-/Diploma Thesis

The winner in the category “Master-/Bachelor-/Diploma Thesis“ is

Oliver Lehmann

for his bachelor thesis on “Return forecasts for indirect real estate investments – an approach for open ended real estate funds”.

Oliver Lehmann is currently employed as a trainee at Landesbank Baden-Württemberg in the field of product management and marketing control corporate customers. In 2009, he graduated in business administration with a Bachelor of Arts in Banking at Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University, Stuttgart, Germany.

Research paper

The winner in the category “Research paper” is

Thies Lindenthal

for his paper on “Demographics, Human Capital and the Demand for Housing”.

Thies Lindenthal is currently employed at Maastricht University as a PhD candidate at the Department of Finance. He is also the founding director of Finn GmbH, Berlin, Germany. In 2009, he was visiting scholar at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He has spent an ecchange semester at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and has won the Doctoral Prize at the European Real Estate Society in 2007 and was PGDA Visiting Fellow for the month of December, 2008, at Harvard School of Public Health.

Dissertation

For the third category “Dissertation” the winner is

Paavo Monkkonen

for his dissertation on “The Housing Transition in Mexico: Local Impacts of National Policy”

Paavo Monkkonen is currently employed as an assistant Professor at the Department of Urban Planning and Design at the University of Hong Kong. After his Master of Public Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2005, he gained his PhD in City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, in December 2009. Since that he is a principal investigator on Spatial Dynamics of the Hong Kong Housing Market. He also serves as an editor for the Berkeley Planning Journal. He has also worked as a GIS and Planing Consultant at a Wind Energy Project for Energia Sustentable, Tijuana, Mexico since 2007. In 2009 he won the Benjamin Stevens Fellowship from the Regional Science Association.

Congratulations to all of them for submitting excellent research papers in order to advance the interdisciplinary research activities within the real estate industry!

Here are some pictures of the venue and the final rehearsal:

Impressions of the venue (Schloss Reichartshausen, European Business School)

Impressions of the venue (Schloss Reichartshausen, European Business School)

Final preparations and rehearsal

Final preparations and rehearsal

Final preparations and rehearsal