700 employees to develop washing machines and dryers of the future at the Center

Under the slogan “Shaping a sustainable future”, BSH Bosch und Siemens Hausgeräte GmbH, together with partners Paribus Capital GmbH, DRC Deutsche RealCorp GmbH & Co. KG and Witte Projektmanagement GmbH today opened their new technology center for laundry care in Berlin. The Mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, was among a host of guests from the worlds of politics and business to witness the symbolic handing over of keys at the technology center’s official opening. The building, into which a total of some 50 million euros had been invested, was designed and constructed by Paribus Capital GmbH in accordance with the latest green building methods and practices for environmental sustainability.

 “Shaping a sustainable future”: this was the slogan accompanying today’s grand opening of BSH Bosch und Siemens Hausgeräte GmbH’s new Berlin-based technology center for laundry care. BSH Bosch und Siemens Hausgeräte GmbH, together with partners Paribus Capital GmbH, DRC Deutsche RealCorp GmbH & Co. KG and Witte Projektmanagement GmbH, were pleased to welcome a host of guests from the worlds of politics and business – including Mayor of Berlin Klaus Wowereit – to the official handing over of the keys. 

A large part of BSH’s competencies in the home laundry product segment will be consolidated in the company’s new technology center in Berlin, including: research and development, quality management, production and materials planning, and purchasing. 

Approximately 700 technicians and engineers will immediately begin working on the washing machines and dryers of the future. At the inauguration, BSH Chairman of the Board of Management Dr. Kurt-Ludwig Gutberlet emphasized the “successful transition from production site to future-oriented development site”, achieved by BSH in Berlin. “This new technology center for laundry care clearly underscores our aim of maintaining our innovative lead over our competitors in the long-term. Conserving resources and improving energy efficiency are crucial elements in the future development of home appliances”, he continued. BSH’s CEO called in this context for a clearer political commitment to increasing private households’ energy efficiency. To this end, the company will also intensify its existing collaborations with Berlin’s higher education and scientific institutions. There are currently a number of joint research projects underway aimed at developing new technologies and innovative applications for washing machines and dryers. 

“BSH Bosch und Siemens Hausgeräte GmbH’s new technology center is a great boost to Berlin’s status as a business location”, declared the city’s mayor, Klaus Wowereit, in his address at the center’s official inauguration. “The 700 highly skilled jobs, some of which have been preserved and some of which created by this new center, will not only improve Berlin’s attractiveness economically. BSH’s commitment to a long-term cooperation with the city’s higher educational and scientific institutions will also boost Berlin’s status as a center for science.” 

Financing through closed-end real estate funds

The new, six-storey building in Siemens' technology park is not only striking in terms of its modern design. When partitioning the 32,000 m2 floor space, great emphasis was laid on ensuring that the office and laboratory areas were linked in a communication-friendly manner. The building was designed and constructed on behalf of the Hamburg-based issuing house Paribus Capital, which created the closed-end real estate fund “Paribus BSH Bosch and Siemens administration and research center, Berlin” to finance it. “The fund is not only realistically calculated, but also scores well with regard to location, quality of the building and financial strength of the tenant – decisive criteria when investing in real estate. 

In addition, BSH has been based in Berlin for the past 60 years”, commented Joachim Schmarbeck, Executive Director of Paribus Capital. “It is clear that such high-quality products are able to attract investor inflows easily, even in the current climate. The fund was fully subscribed within a very short period”, added fellow-Executive Director Thomas Böcher. Paribus Capital raised investment equity in the amount of 35 million euros during the fund’s four-month placement phase. The participation has an overall investment volüme of approximately 63 million euros. Investors should receive annual disbursements of 6.0 per cent from 2012 onwards, increasing to 7.0 per cent annually until 2021. 

Implementation of ambitious environmental strategies

Another plus point of the fund property is the building’s excellent energy efficiency. “Our principals, BSH and Paribus Capital, placed great emphasis on the sustainability of the building from the outset. We therefore worked with Berlin-based architects Gewers & Pudewill to ensure that the building was designed in such a way that it would always be able to obtain green building certification”, explained Marco Witte, Managing Partner of Witte Projektmanagement GmbH. The company gave project management and general planning advice and support to Paribus Capital GmbH from the investor competition stage through to the project’s completion. Of the 45 million euros, in round terms, given over to construction costs, the only expenditure significantly over 10 million euros was that spent on the innovative and ecological building systems. The energy strategy includes using machines that are being tested to help climatize the building. “The waste heat from the water in more than 1,000 washing machines will be used to heat the building, for example. 

The same applies in respect of the exhaust air from the dryers”, explained Hendrik Dusny,

project leader and divisional director of the DGNB (German Sustainable Building Council) at

Witte Projektmanagement. DGNB certification is currently in preparation. If BSH’s technology center receives this certification in the summer of 2012, it will be one of the first laboratory buildings ever to be awarded the DGNB plaque.