Olivier Piani, the chief executive of Allianz Real Estate, is to retire by the end of this year.
Piani has been in the role since 2008 and is in charge of €37.4bn (£27.4bn) of assets.
He is to be replaced by Francois Trausch will take over the role from 1 January 2016. He will be based in Paris. Trausch has been the current chief executive of Asia-Pacific of GE Capital Real Estate since 2010. Prior to that he spent 15 years with GE in Europe and previously worked for Tishman Speyer in New York and Berlin and for Goldman Sachs in London.
GE has been winding down its global real estate interests as it looks to exit the sector and in April sold $23bn (£15bn) of assets globally to Blackstone and Wells Fargo.
Maximilian Zimmerer, member of the board of management of Allianz SE said: “Francois Trausch is a highly regarded leader in the global real estate industry. I am very pleased to know that Trausch will be the successor of Olivier Piani who built up Allianz Real Estate as a worldwide real estate platform, generating excellent investment results for the Allianz companies over many years. I thank Piani very much for his great commitment to his job and his close collaboration.”
