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34 Deutsche EuroShop ANNUAL REPORT 2014 CENTER The art of securing a company’s future ECE celebrates its 50th anniversary A lexander Otto, who will be joined by his employees on 22 January to celebrate the 50th anniversary of ECE, formerly known as the Einkaufs-Center-Entwicklungsgesellschaft, took over as CEO in 2000 from non-family manager Dr Heinrich Kraft. Prior to that, he had studied at Harvard University and gained experience in other companies, both as a finan- cial analyst and director of financial planning in New York. He joined ECE in 1994, initially as a project manager working on the development of Schlosspark-Center in Schwerin, one of the shopping centers that this Hamburg-based shopping center specialist developed in the new eastern states following German reunification. After switching to the Management Board, Alexander Otto took over the Leasing divi- sion and was then appointed Deputy Chair- man under Heinrich Kraft who he succeeded as CEO on 1 July 2000. This youngest son of Werner Otto, founder of both Otto Versand and ECE, had taken over the helm of a com- pany that was a major player on the real es- tate market and Germany’s undisputed leader among shopping center developers. Contin- ued internationalisation, which had already begun in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1996 – 97 under the aegis of his predecessor, became the core element of his strategy. It was a logical step, particularly since the German retail market was expanding in- creasingly to Eastern Europe and shopping centers are preferred locations when taking the leap into foreign markets. Not only that, but the retail space network was also under- developed and outdated following years of a centrally planned economy. As early as 17 August 2001, Alexander Otto opened the first ECE-developed shop- ping center outside Germany, the Galeria Dominikanska in the Polish city of Wro- claw. The grand opening of Galeria Lodzka followed one year later in Lodz, another Pol- ish city. Today the number of shopping cent- ers outside Germany either developed and/ or managed by ECE has risen to 59. One of the countries currently in ECE’s focus is Tur- key. All in all, the company is active in 16 dif- ferent countries and manages 196 shopping centers. The Otto family owns other real estate companies in the USA and Canada which fo- cus on retail and residential properties. Ad- ditionally, the family itself holds investments in US shopping center specialist DDR Corp. (Developers Diversified Reality) and Sonae Sierra Basil SA. ECE is undeniably one of to- day’s major names on the European shopping center market, which is dominated by just a few extremely large players. Due to the fact that the structures of these businesses dif- fer greatly and are thus difficult to compare, no definitive answer can be provided to the question of which is largest. The success of Hamburg’s Otto family as well as its two companies, ECE and the Otto Group, is founded in a fruitful, multi-generational collaboration between family members and non-family managers. The past few years, in particular, have shown how traditional (family-owned) companies can start to flounder. The liquidation of Quelle, a large mail order company, just a few years ago showed in very clear terms that not even the big names are left unscathed by structural change. Successfully managing a family-owned company is not only a labour of love, it also calls for both business expertise and sound succession planning. Stadt-Galerie, Passau