Alain Taravella (Altarea Cogedim) : Altarea continue de grandir et de se diversifier

I am a little more than a developer; I am a city entrepreneur. That is, the business of Altarea and its subsidiaries in development and investment is to create the city and transform it, and that is an absolutely immense market. So on one side, I have the conviction that the city transformation market is an extremely important, immense market that will continue to develop, and on the other side, there is the market of savers, of real estate savings, which—you could see during the pandemic—the money that was set aside by the French. So I am convinced that bringing together within the same group both the investment side and the development side creates a complete group that can cover the entire real estate planet.

I am convinced that we are on the eve of a new start, a new recovery. The recent period was clearly not easy for us, as for everyone, but real estate didn't really suffer, especially for a group like ours that is present in all markets. For example, the retail or office market weakened a little, but there will always be a need for shops and offices. The housing market, as you can see, is taking on tremendous proportions, with tensions between supply and demand—there aren't enough homes; we are not producing enough housing. Absolutely. We have an issue of producing, of finding products. On one side we have the know-how to create products of all kinds, especially housing, and on the other side, the savings of the French—and Europeans in general—are increasingly investing in real estate. So bringing the two together is interesting.

I am not doing the Primonial acquisition to sell our products to Primonial. That could happen, but we haven't sold anything to Primonial in ten years, so that's not the issue. I think that today the city is transforming, and Primonial was more used to buying what we call 'core' assets, i.e., completed office buildings with leases of about ten years. That was fine. But today the city is transforming: when you have an office building, you need to transform it, modify it; you can convert part of it into housing. There will be a transformation know-how that can also create value for Primonial. This is not an acquisition to sell products; it's to create products together.

Exactly. That's why we met, Primonial and ourselves. Primonial is a fund managed by its own management. For us, it's a deal between entrepreneurs. We met and saw that we are in complete synergy, positive synergy. Synergy of economies, positive synergy regarding investment issues, issues of investing in the transforming city. And we have reflections on the transformation of the city. So that's why we met.

Fortunately, not all sites are stopped. But indeed we are in a societal transformation. On one hand, everyone is aware that there is a need for housing. No one says, 'Oh, there are too many houses, let's sleep under bridges.' No one says that. So additional housing is needed. The population of France is increasing. On the other hand, there is the 'not in my garden' attitude: build housing, but a little further away. That's what the greens say: just a little further. So it's a contradiction. People like us who do transformation are at the forefront. We are currently transforming a piece of the city of Issy-les-Moulineaux, where we are demolishing obsolete buildings, rebuilding, creating an urban forest. We can conceive of both. You have to accept that maybe we need to densify more to create more housing. Yes, it's a challenge, it's difficult. Our job is difficult. We bring added value, but I think we can transform the city. We are contributors to the transformation of the city.