Vonovia in the Context of Current Trends and Developments

GRI

We will forever remember 2020 as the year of the coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic negatively impacted global economies, resulting in a pronounced recession. The coronavirus crisis and the associated lockdowns have also left their mark on the European economy more clearly than was assumed in spring 2020. Both the EU and the German government launched historic aid packages as countermeasures over the course of the year, but reliable statements on the planned economic recovery are not possible at this stage.

The housing industry has shown itself to be a stable sector during the crisis, as there has been little change in the basic conditions of the housing market, e.g., in metropolitan areas. However, we are convinced that the dynamic realignment of many people’s working lives and, consequently, their housing situation will bring about long-term changes. This is because it became clear during the pandemic that digital work environments and extensive online work could help contain even more serious consequences of the pandemic on national economies.

In addition, our company was also preoccupied in the 2020 fiscal year with extreme global weather phenomena, mostly caused by man-made global climate change. Heat, drought and fire on the one hand, and heavy rain, flooding, glacier melt and rising sea levels on the other, are causing or exacerbating negative economic developments and associated global migratory movement. The popularity that the Fridays for Future movement is receiving in society and politics, for example, shows us at Vonovia that companies can no longer just look at purely maximizing profit. Instead, they must address multiple demands directed at companies as players in society. The shareholder value approach is increasingly developing into the stakeholder value approach, which integrates not only shareholders in the capital market into the entrepreneurial license to operate, but also other groups such as employees, suppliers, customers and many others.

Vonovia SE at a Glance

Vonovia operates around 355,000 apartments (December 31, 2020) in almost all of Germany’s attractive cities and regions as well as around 22,000 apartments in Austria and approximately 38,000 in Sweden. This makes Vonovia one of the leading residential real estate companies in these three countries.

Vonovia SE has its registered headquarters in Germany. Since 2017, its registered office has been located in Bochum.

Vonovia SE, the parent company of the Vonovia Group, is organized in the legal form of a dualistic European company (SE). The parent company performs the function of the management holding company for the Group. As such, it is responsible for determining and pursuing the overall strategy and implementing it in the form of the company’s goals. It performs property management, financing, service, and coordination tasks for the Group. Furthermore, it is responsible for the management, control and monitoring system as well as risk management.

Vonovia manages its business via the four segments: Rental, Value-add, Recurring Sales and Development.

Further information on Vonovia SE and its corporate structure can be found in the 2020 Annual Report

In addition to climate change, the other megatrends of urbanization and housing shortages, as well as demographic change, represent future determinants of the entrepreneurial activities at Vonovia. Against this backdrop, the integration of sustainability into corporate processes is an important task for us, and we continued to advance this throughout the Group in 2020.