Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield SE (previously Unibail-Rodamco SE) is a French

commercial real estate Commercial property, also called commercial real estate, investment property or income property, is real estate (buildings or land) intended to generate a profit, either from capital gains or rental income. Commercial property includes office ...

company headquartered in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. Its history originates with the formation of two separate

shopping centre A shopping center ( American English) or shopping centre (Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof. The first known colle ...

operators, Unibail (founded in France in 1968) and Rodamco Europe (founded in the Netherlands in 1999), which merged in 2007 and became a ''

societas Europaea A ''societas Europaea'' (, ; "European society" or "company"; plural: ; abbr. SE) is a public company registered in accordance with the corporate law of the European Union (EU), introduced in 2004 with the Council Regulation on the Statute ...

'' in 2009. The company acquired Australian shopping centre operator

Westfield Corporation Westfield Corporation was an Australian commercial real estate company and operator of shopping centres. It was founded with the spin-off of the Westfield Group in 2014, where assets in Australia and New Zealand formed the Scentre Group and ...

in June 2018. As of 2018, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield is the largest commercial real estate company in Europe, and is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50

stock market index In finance, a stock index, or stock market index, is an index that measures a stock market, or a subset of the stock market, that helps investors compare current stock price levels with past prices to calculate market performance. Two of th ...

, as well as the French CAC40. Its portfolio consists of retail property, office buildings, and convention centers within Europe and North America. Many of its shopping centres use the Westfield brand launched by Westfield Group in 1960 and shared with

Scentre Group Scentre Group Limited is a shopping centre company with retail destinations operating under the Westfield brand in Australia and New Zealand. The corporation undertakes ownership, development, design, construction, funds/asset management, proper ...

for properties in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

and

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...

since 2014. Retail properties owned by Unibail-Rodamco before the merger carry the Westfield name. As of July 2022, the group owned 87 shopping centres.

History

Background

Unibail was founded in 1968 as a finance-leasing unit by a company called Worms & Cie. In 1991, Unibail started focusing on the property investment sector, and phased out involvement in lease financing. It built a property portfolio of close to 30 shopping centres across France – including the

Forum des Halles Les Halles (; 'The Halls') was Paris' central fresh food market. It last operated on January 12, 1973, after which it was "left to the demolition men who will knock down the last three of the eight iron-and-glass pavilions""Les Halles Dead at 200 ...

and the arcade within

CNIT The Centre of New Industries and Technologies ( French: Centre des nouvelles industries et technologies, abbreviated CNIT), located in Puteaux, France, is the first building ever to be developed in La Défense, west of Paris, France. It function ...

– and substantial office properties in Paris and

La Défense La Défense () is a major business district in France, located west of the city limits of Paris. It is part of the Paris metropolitan area in the Île-de-France region, located in the department of Hauts-de-Seine in the communes of Courbev ...

– including the

Tour Ariane Tour Ariane (English: Ariane Tower)(previously known as tour Générale between 1973 and 1995) is an office skyscraper located in La Défense, the high-rise business district situated west of Paris, France. Built in 1975, it belongs to the 2nd g ...

and the Paris Expo group of convention centres. Rodamco Europe formed in 1999 when Rodamco, a property investment fund set up by the Dutch asset management group

Robeco Robeco is an originally Dutch asset management firm, since 2013 part of Orix, founded in 1929 as the Rotterdamsch Beleggings Consortium (Rotterdam Investment Consortium). As of 2014, the company had €246 billion of assets under management. It ...

in 1979, broke up into various independent listed companies covering different parts of the world. Rodamco Europe subsequently collected a portfolio primarily consisting of shopping centres and other retail spaces across 14 European countries, along with some office property in France and the Netherlands, acquiring smaller European rivals in the process.

2007–2017: Unibail-Rodamco

On April 10, 2007, Rodamco Europe announced an agreement to conduct a merger of equals with Unibail to create the largest publicly traded property company in Europe. The merger was confirmed on June 21, 2007, after Unibail announced the acquisition of 80% of Rodamco's shares, making its offer for the remainder unconditional. The merged entity took effect as a ''société anonyme'' under the new name Unibail-Rodamco on June 25, 2007. On June 1, 2011, Unibail-Rodamco hired former

FNAC Fnac () is a large French retail chain selling culture, cultural and consumer electronics, electronic products, founded by André Essel and Max Théret in 1954. Its head office is in ''Le Flavia'' in Ivry-sur-Seine near Paris. It is an abbreviati ...

CEO Christophe Cuvillier as the new COO. In collaboration with CEO and Chairman of the Board Guillaume Poitrinal, he led the company to five years of growth in spite of tough economic conditions. In May 2015, Unibail revealed it had signed an agreement with the

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB; french: Office d'investissement du régime de pensions du Canada), operating as CPP Investments (french: Investissements RPC), is a Canadian Crown corporation established by way of the 1997 ''Cana ...

to sell its 46.1% stake in German shopping mall operator MFI AG for €394 million.

2018–present: Acquisition of Westfield

In December 2017, Unibail took over

, which operated 35 shopping centres in the US and the UK, for a reported price of 24.8 billion. The Australian shopping centres branded as Westfield and held by Scentre were not acquired by Unibail. The deal was completed in June 2018, and the shopping centres owned by Unibail-Rodamco before the merger had their names modified to have the Westfield brand, with 10 flagships starting in September 2019. In November 2020, Colin Dyer resigned as supervisory-board chairman after a shareholder meeting rejected the board's proposal to raise 3.5 billion euros ($4.15 billion). Dyer remained on the board but was replaced as chairman by former Unibail CEO Leon Bressler, one of a consortium of shareholders and investors who had opposed the capital increase and other proposed strategies. In January 2021, Jean-Marie Tritant was appointed Chairman of the Management Board and

Chief Executive Officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especiall ...

of the group. In April 2022, the company announced a plan to sell all of its U.S. malls—24 of them—within two years.

Corporate affairs

Management

* Jean-Marie Tritant – Group Chief Executive Officer * Fabrice Mouchel – Group Chief Financial Officer * Astrid Panosyan – Group Chief Resources Officer * Olivier Bossard – Group Chief Development Officer * Domenic Lowe – Chief operating officer U.S. * Michel Dessolain – Chief Operating Officer (Europe) * Peter Miller – Chief Operating Officer (UK, Italy, Benelux) * Gerard Sieben – Chief Financial Officer (WFD Unibail-Rodamco N.V.)

Shareholders

The following are the company shareholders as of December 2021: *

Xavier Niel Xavier Niel (born 25 August 1967) is a French billionaire businessman involved in the telecommunications and technology industry. He is best known as founder and majority shareholder of the French Internet service provider and mobile operator I ...

(Rock Investment et NJJ Market) - 23.2% * APG Asset Management NV - 4.61% *

Norges Bank Norges Bank / Noregs Bank is the central bank of Norway. The bank shall promote economic stability in Norway. Norges Bank also manages the Government Pension Fund of Norway and the bank’s own foreign exchange reserves. History The history of ...

Investment Management - 4.43% * Aermont Capital LLP - 3.05% *

The Vanguard Group The Vanguard Group, Inc. is an American registered investment advisor based in Malvern, Pennsylvania, with about $7 trillion in global assets under management, as of January 13, 2021. It is the largest provider of mutual funds and the second-l ...

, Inc. - 2.90% *

BlackRock BlackRock, Inc. is an American multi-national investment company based in New York City. Founded in 1988, initially as a risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager, with trill ...

Advisors (UK) Ltd. - 2.21% * BlackRock Fund Advisors - 1.82% *

Amundi Amundi is a French asset management company. With €2 trillion of assets under management (AUM) at the end of 2021, it is the largest asset manager in Europe and one of the 10 biggest investment managers in the world. Founded on 1 January 2010, ...

Asset Management SA - 1.11% *

AXA Investment Managers Axa Investment Managers (Axa IM) is a global investment management firm with offices in over 22 locations worldwide. As of 31 December 2021, it manages over €887 billion in assets on behalf of institutional and retail clients. It operates as ...

(Paris) SA - 1.00% *

Dimensional Fund Advisors Dimensional Fund Advisors, L.P. (branded Dimensional abbreviated DFA) is a private investment firm headquartered in Austin, Texas. Dimensional was founded in Chicago in 1981 by David Booth, Rex Sinquefield and Larry Klotz. The company has affili ...

LP - 0.84%

Indexes

Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield is listed in several indexes, including: * FTSE4Good (since 2008) * Dow Jones Sustainability Index (World since 2008 and Europe since 2010) * Advanced Sustainability Performance Eurozone Index (since 2010) * Ethibel Sustainability Index (since 2011) * ECPI Index (since 2011) * STOXX Global ESG Leaders Index (since 2011) * Standard Ethics French Index (since 2015) Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield is rated A by Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings. In 2015,

Standard Ethics Aei Standard Ethics is an independent sustainability reporting rating agency based in London, known for its sustainable finance and ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) studies. In 2001, it introduced a standardised approach to sustainabilit ...

has given a rating to Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield in order to include it in its Standard Ethics French Index.

Assets

Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield owns 87 shopping centers (as of April 2021) in the main cities of the countries where it operates, 97% of which attract more than 6 million visitors per year. In terms of Office Real Estate, Unibail-Rodamco invests in and develops efficient buildings with more than 10,000 square metres of usable retail space in Paris, such as the Ariane Tower in La Défense and the Majunga Tower. To conceive and design its buildings, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield works with high-end architectural firms like Thomas Mayne of Morphosis firm,

Herzog & de Meuron Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd.,
" Herzog & de Meuron. Retrieved on 11 October 2012. "Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd. R ...

, RIADH group (De La Hoz, Cottrell, Michelangeli), the firm Architecture

Farshid Moussavi Farshid Moussavi (born in 1965, Shiraz, Iran) is an Iranian-born British architect, educator, and author. She is the founder of Farshid Moussavi Architecture (FMA) and a Professor in Practice of Architecture at Harvard University Graduate S ...

, Cuno & Jean Brullmann Crochon-Luc,

Jean-Paul Viguier Jean-Paul Viguier (born 4 May 1946) is a French architect. He is considered one of the world's leading architects and one of the few French ones to work extensively outside of Europe. Early works Graduated from the École nationale supérieure ...

,Lyon Confluence / Jean-Paul Viguier et Associes
''Arch Daily'', 8 June 2012 Epstein & Glaiman / Recevki Architecture, Araldo Cossutta & Ponte, and Arte-Charpentier.

References

External links

* * {{authority control, state=expanded Companies based in Paris Companies listed on Euronext Amsterdam Companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange French companies established in 2007 Real estate companies established in 2007 Real estate companies of France Real estate companies of the Netherlands Shopping center management firms CAC 40