Ascan Kókai
Ascan Kókai joined ECE Real Estate Partners in October 2020 to oversee its hotel real estate investment activities. The ECE European Lodging Recovery Fund has a focus on a pan-European hotel strategy looking for assets requiring value-add initiatives, with a targeted investment volume around €600 million, once fully invested. Its seed asset is the €100m Bonvecchiati ensemble in San Marco, Venice (IT) which is currently being repositioned.
Most recently Ascan was for five years with NH Hotel Group (operator of nearly 400 hotels) as member of the management committee for the business unit Northern Europe and responsible for the expansion activities with a particular focus on the DACH region, UK, Ireland, Benelux and Central Europe, as well as the asset management and landlord relations of the 128 strong portfolio of mostly leased hotels in the business unit.
Ascan gained extensive institutional investor experience during ten years with Invesco Real Estate, the global independent fund manager, initially for three years based in London and since 2008 in Munich. Ascan was closely involved with the setup, fund raising, deal sourcing, asset and fund management of Invesco’s first hotel fund, which he later also managed for several years. The fund, a Luxemburg SICAV, had €350m equity invested and reached a gross asset value of €700m. The multi-branded portfolio consisted of 17 hotels across nine countries. The investors were a group of seven institutional investors including Generali (France) and Allianz, as well as a further insurance group, German pension funds and a fund of funds.
Before joining Invesco, Ascan spent over six years at JLL Hotels in London working on pan-European assignments across valuations, brokerage and eventually as Vice President in asset management, including an exchange to the Los Angeles office.
With more than 20 years of experience in the hotel real estate investment industry with leading market participants JLL and Invesco Real Estate, Ascan Kókai has extensive knowledge in asset, investment and fund management, including contract negotiations, hotel transactions and real estate financing.
Ascan started out in 1992 as Hotelkaufmann business trainee in the luxury sector (Fairmont Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten, Hamburg). In 1999 he graduated top of class with a 1st class BSc (Hons) from University of Surrey, Guildford, UK. Currently, he lives with his Norwegian wife and their two sons in Hamburg.