Urlaubs- und Lohnausgleichskasse der Bauwirtschaft (ULAK)

Urlaubs- und Lohnausgleichskasse der Bauwirtschaft (ULAK)

ULAK operates inside SOKA-BAU, the jointly governed institution of Germany's construction-sector social partners — the employers' federations HDB and ZDB and the trade union IG BAU — and exists to administer the industry-wide holiday pay and wage-compensation scheme mandated by collective agreement. Its investment function flows from the requirement to hold and grow the reserves that back those statutory obligations, making it a paritarian institution rather than a commercial insurer. ULAK invests across a multi-asset framework built around direct German real estate, fixed income and private credit, infrastructure, and selected externally managed alternative strategies. Direct real estate exposures span residential and commercial properties held through SOKA-BAU entities — a 60-location residential portfolio across markets including Wiesbaden, Berlin, Essen, Hannover, Kassel, and Pinneberg — alongside a global timber portfolio. On the liquid side, ULAK and its sister entity SOKA-BAU deploy into fixed-income and absolute-return mandates with external managers, reflecting the regulated, liability-aware posture of a social-protection vehicle. The portfolio has seen active rotation: a residential package sold to AEW and a GWH Immobilien Holding stake were divested, shifting capital into other housing, infrastructure, and credit exposures. Werner Schneider serves as CIO and Executive Board member, working alongside board colleague Dr. Gerhard Mudrack. Former CIO Gregor Asshoff stepped down from the board in June 2025 (per the firm, 2025). ULAK participates in professional networks tied to its paritarian structure, including the German association for occupational pensions (aba), the European Association of Paritarian Institutions (AEIP), and the Wiesbaden-based CSR-Netzwerk Regio.Net. ULAK's structural differentiator is its paritarian governance: investment policy is shaped jointly by employer associations and trade unions under a collective-bargaining framework, not by a single sponsor or profit-seeking parent. This joint-stewardship model, common in continental European social-protection systems, embeds a conservative risk appetite and a time horizon aligned to multi-decade industry obligations rather than quarterly reporting cycles.