Former Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield CFO joins VIA Outlets

Former Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield group chief financial officer Jaap Tonckens has joined VIA Outlets as a board adviser. Tonckens worked at URW for 11 years before his departure in December last year. He spent more than eight years serving as group chief financial officer. He was also a member of its management board. Before URW, Tonckens worked at Morgan Stanley for more than 14 years in London and New York, latterly as a managing director in its leverage and acquisition finance team. He was also recently appointed an adviser to the board of directors at Dutch lifestyle and hotel company citizenM. Tonckens said: “VIA Outlets is one of the most experienced owner-operator of premium outlet destinations in Europe with a well-defined growth strategy to generate superior returns for the pension fund clients of its shareholder APG, through active management of its assets and capital structure optimisation.” Otto Ambagtsheer, chief executive of VIA Outlets, said: “His wealth of expertise across commercial real estate and finance will be instrumental to the further development of our growth strategy in the coming years.” Ambagtsheer added that the growth strategy for the business involves “remodelling, re-merchandising and re-marketing” its 11 centres, pursuing acquisitions and ground-up developments, and repositioning underperforming assets. Hammerson sold its 50% stake in VIA Outlets to its joint venture partner APG Capital last year. To send feedback, e-mail pui-guan.man@eg.co.uk or tweet @PuiGuanM or @EGPropertyNews