Wüest Partner carries out valuation of Engie headquarters for Swiss Life Asset Managers

In 2020, Wüest Partner was mandated by the asset management company Swiss Life Asset Managers France, to carry out a financial valuation of Engie’s future world headquarters, a 136,000 m² eco-campus located in La Garenne-Colombes in the Hauts-de-Seine department, as quickly as possible, with a view to positioning itself for its acqui­sition.

By 2024, the future headquarters of Engie will accom­modate the employees and partners of the French energy company, on two hectares of parkland.

This eco-campus aims to be a showcase for sustainable, carbon-neutral commercial real estate. It will be powered by a 100% renewable energy mix. At its heart, it will include 6,000 m² dedicated to creation and innovation, as well as two audito­riums and services (gardens, restau­rants, medical centre, sports halls, crèche, etc.). Designed as the “smart and sustainable city of tomorrow”, the project is being led by the developer Nexity.

Wüest Partner’s assessment of the value and economic potential of this excep­tional real estate investment was completed in just two weeks! A record time for a spectacular acqui­sition worth more than one billion euros.

The tight deadlines were met thanks to our expertise in property valuation and the use of our “in-house” tool, Wüest Dimen­sions, which enables us to compare different scenarios based on hypotheses of rent varia­tions and according to different construction rates.

This real estate expertise was carried out at different levels: construction, devel­opment and property management. The results of prior technical and environ­mental studies were integrated.

Following its acqui­sition at the end of 2020 by Swiss Life Asset Managers, Engie’s eco-campus project was finally resized to 94,000 m² to take into account the rethinking of working methods and relation­ships with space in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic

Wüest Partner has a long-standing relationship of trust with the major insti­tu­tional players in the real estate sector, be they insurance companies, banking groups, pension funds, portfolio managers or real estate devel­opers.

Our analyses allow us to estimate the CO2 emissions of potential long-term invest­ments and feed it into the CSR/ESG strategy. The data extracted for the assessment, which includes building, space, rents, leases, costs, future invest­ments and environ­mental impacts, can then be used by portfolio managers in the Wüest Dimen­sions tool to drive the investment strategy.

We mobilise a broad range of expertise globally to advise our clients and provide them with the most relevant valua­tions based on smart data, consol­i­dated at the level of individual portfolios and over time, to enable them to make the right investment, acqui­sition and disposal decisions.