Altarea halts plan to acquire asset manager Primonial

French property developer Altarea has announced that its acquisition of European real estate investment and asset manager Primonial cannot be completed under the pre-agreed conditions.

Euronext Paris-listed Altarea said it realised that some of the conditions agreed with Primonial in June last year were not met - ”in terms of substance, form and timing”.

“Altarea deplores this situation, and will therefore not be able to complete the acquisition of Primonial as agreed with a sufficient level of legal security,” Altarea said in a brief statement.

Responding to the statement, Primonial said the reasons given are essentially a “delay in the transmission of the documentation and figures relating to the operations prior to the closing”.

This transaction, particularly complex given the ambition to simplify the current shareholding structure of the Primonial group at closing, required the completion of a very large number of transactions (mergers, capital increase, capital reduction, etc.) within the very tight deadlines that were jointly set last July at the time of the signing, Primonial said.

“It is therefore inconceivable to question its completion only two days before closing for this reason alone, when all the conditions precedent were met,” Primonial said.

Primonial said a press conference held at the end of last week to announce Altarea’s 2021 results confirmed that the acquisition of the Primonial was due to take place in the coming days.

“As a consequence, we will have the buyer’s failure to meet his obligations established by all legal means,” Primonial said.

Last year, Altarea said it had entered exclusive negotiations with Primonial to acquire 60% of the company in the first quarter of 2022 and the remainder in the first quarter of 2024.

At the time, Altarea was looking to acquire Primonial’s €30bn real estate asset management business, its €12bn distribution business and a minority stake of 15% in €13bn multi-asset fund manager La Financière de l’Echiquier (LFDE) – the remaining 85% of LFDE would be retained by current shareholders.

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