Rolf Buch has achieved his goal: The real estate company Vonovia, which he runs, has collected more than 50 percent of the outstanding shares in the Dax Group through a public takeover bid to Deutsche Wohnen shareholders and has thus set the tone for its smaller rival. This creates Europe’s largest residential property group. This scares many tenants and means that the Vonovia boss is already facing the next challenge: the issue of expropriation.
SPD top candidate Franziska Giffey, who as the election winner has a good chance of becoming Berlin’s First Governing Mayor, announced on Monday a draft law on the expropriation of housing companies. But this should be constitutional and legally secure, she emphasized – and should ultimately not lead to the result that Berlin activists want and real estate companies fear.
But even if the expropriation initiative is given little chance of success: The headwind for real estate companies will not go away.
Housing is a basic human need, and too many people currently have the feeling that there is barely enough money for a decent apartment, while unscrupulous speculators are enriching themselves with them. Vonovia can and must also pay dividends to shareholders every year. And of course the billion-dollar deal with Deutscher Wohnen should ensure that the yield for Vonovia investors increases.
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However, the merger will put pressure primarily on the suppliers of the real estate groups: Vonovia wants to get even higher discounts for major customers in the future – and in contrast to the agreements with tenants, which can refer to the rent index, companies are not limited in negotiations with suppliers .
In addition, you shouldn’t forget that as a tenant of Vonovia in Berlin you have to pay an average of less than seven euros per square meter. These are probably not the sums that many Berliners despair of. Even after the takeover, Vonovia’s market share is so small that not even the Federal Cartel Office is alarmed.
To relax the Berlin housing market, a lot more levers have to be set in motion than Vonovia boss Buch can. That doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t work on the image, after all, Europe’s largest housing company has a role model function. But as a large corporation, and also listed on the stock exchange, Vonovia is simply a grateful scapegoat – even if others actually play this role better.
More: Vonovia succeeds in taking over the majority of Deutsche Wohnen.