VIA Outlets appoints Jaap Tonckens as an Advisor to the Board

Jaap brings over 25 years’ worth of global experience from the real estate and finance industries, having most recently spent 11 years at Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, of which more than eight years as Group Chief Financial Officer, where he was also a member of its Management Board. Prior to URW, Jaap spent over 14 years at Morgan Stanley  & Co. in London and New York, most recently as a Managing Director in its Leverage Finance team. Jaap is particularly experienced in commercial real estate and corporate finance, capital markets and transactions. He was also recently appointed an advisor to the Board of Directors of Dutch lifestyle and hotel company citizenM.

Jaap Tonckens commented: “VIA Outlets is one of the most experienced owner-operator of premium outlet destinations in Europe with a well-defined growth strategy to generate superior returns for the pension fund clients of its shareholder APG, through active management of its assets and capital structure optimisation. I am thrilled at the opportunity to contribute to the continued growth of the business by putting my real estate and finance experience at the disposal of VIA Outlets and its Board of Directors.”

Otto Ambagtsheer, Chief Executive Officer of VIA Outlets, commented: “We welcome Jaap as an advisor to the VIA Outlets Board. His wealth of expertise across commercial real estate and finance will be instrumental to the further development of our growth strategy in the coming years. This strategy is based on both organic and inorganic growth – the former by applying our well-known 3 R’s strategy of Remodelling, Remerchandising and Remarketing to elevate each of our eleven outlet centres, and the latter by actively pursuing acquisition prospects and ground-up developments; acquiring and repositioning under-performing assets in order to generate returns for the pension fund clients of our shareholder APG and create value for brand partners and guests alike.”