Transforming complexityinto enduring institutions.
Building and advising property businesses through periods of change across the Middle East, Europe and Latin America.
Twenty-five years building and running property companies for large owners. Abu Dhabi, Jeddah, Dubai, and across Europe and Latin America.
About
Rees Advisors builds and runs the property companies that large owners need. The practice is led by Claus Peter Rees, who has spent twenty-five years shaping and advising real estate businesses across the Gulf, Europe and Latin America.
In Abu Dhabi, he served as Acting Chief Executive of the real estate arm of Al Qudra Holding, consolidating a USD 10 billion land portfolio into an integrated company and delivering two sales launches worth USD 1.8 billion through the financial crisis. In Jeddah, he established the property company at Abdul Latif Jameel from a fragmented, multi-billion-dollar portfolio, leading more than 150 people across 200 sites before handing the business to the next generation.
Alongside these operating roles, he has advised owners and governments on portfolios of significant scale: a USD 40 billion development portfolio for a sovereign developer in Dubai; seven years representing the UK government on healthcare infrastructure across MENA; and earlier mandates for governments and industry in Berlin, Hannover and São Paulo. He works across English, German, Portuguese and French.
Practice
The situations we are brought into.
Rees Advisors works with owners and families at moments when a property portfolio, an organisation or a generation is entering a new phase. The work may concern land, assets, governance or succession, but the underlying task is usually the same: bringing the parts of a business into a form that can endure.
Land and portfolio strategy
Clarifying what is held, the role each holding plays, and how the portfolio should develop over time. This includes the relationship between land, development, investment and the entities through which they are owned.
Consolidation and structure
Bringing together property interests that have accumulated over time, often across companies, shareholders and generations. The objective is a structure that provides clarity of ownership, appropriate governance and a sound basis for the next stage of the business.
Asset performance
Developing a clear understanding of the portfolio: what is owned, how each asset is performing, where value can be developed, and where capital and management attention are best directed. This work often provides the foundation for longer-term investment decisions.
Organisation and leadership
Building the organisation around the portfolio. This may involve defining responsibilities, strengthening management, establishing decision-making structures, or assembling the team required to manage a larger and more sophisticated business.
Succession and continuity
Preparing a business for a change in leadership while preserving the knowledge, relationships and principles on which it was built. Succession is considered not simply as a transfer of responsibility, but as the continuation of an institution across generations.
Track Record
Twenty-five years of building companies for owners.
Focused on the Gulf, with work across Europe and Latin America. Operating seats alongside owners, and mandates for governments and developers.
Writing
On housing, cities and capital.
How housing systems are financed, structured and reformed, and what the Gulf can take from markets that already ran the same experiment.
Contact
Let’s talk.
If you are considering a change in the structure, direction or leadership of a property business, we would be glad to hear from you.