SWITZERLAND - Credit Suisse Asset Management (CSAM) has appointed Daniel Tochtermann as director and head of international real estate products targeting Swiss institutional investors.

Tochtermann was previously senior partner at the real estate consulting firm Wueest & Partner, carrying out valuation, portfolio management consulting and transaction services, and is expected to take up his post at CSAM in September as product manager for the Credit Suisse Real Estate Fund International, which would be launched afterwards.

Credit Suisse said it already offered the German real estate fund CS Euroreal to Swiss investors.

“A majority of clients have shown great interest” a spokesperson for CSAM said, adding that in the last few years the rate of investors in real estate in Switzerland as well as Germany had risen. Deutsche Bank estimated German institutions would invest another 10 billion euros into property in 2004. But in the last 10 years average yields (rent as a proportion of capital value) in major Western countries’ commercial property markets have fallen to 6% from 8%, according to Reuters.

Tochtermann will report to Markus Graf, head of real estate asset management. Graf said: “ We are pleased to have someone with Mr Tochtermann’s breadth and depth of experience in the real estate investment business join our team.”

CSAM also said that “negotiations“ with a regional manager would to be concluded shortly.