abacus has decided to sell his Vilanova del Cami warehouse for 31.5 million euros, according to market sources. The operation involves selling the property and commits Abacus to remain as a tenant for 17 years, in what Anglo-Saxons know as a ‘sale & leaseback’ operation. The objective is to strengthen the financial balance of the cultural cooperative and provide it with resources to invest in digitization, educational content and audiovisual production. Also in the development of online sales.
The buyer is the bottom Pictet Alternative Advisors and their local partner Freo. The warehouse sold has an area of 25,000 square meters, with 18 loading docks that allow it to serve the 48 Abacus stores, manage shipments in 24 hours generated by online sales, as well as to schools and companies. One of the great advantages of this warehouse is its strategic location, with good road connections.
Abacus aspires that this sale and the pact of a stable and predictable income will allow the companies to consolidate themselves as a reference firm in the field of education, culture and leisure, from the values of cooperativism.
The sale has been advised by Savills and Audiconsultores ETL Global, and Pictet and Freo by Andersen, Pérez Lorca, Ernst & Young, Deerns and Longevity.
Abacus, a cooperative founded in 1968, has one million consumer members and a turnover of 90 million euros. Abacus’s new bookstore strategy focuses on shipping books in less than 24 hours to any part of the State. By purchasing ‘on line’, anyone can access any book thanks to the logistics center of Vilanova del Camí, in Anoia, where more than 160,000 titles will be available and where they will be sent, either to the customer’s home or with pick-up from the chosen Abacus establishment.
To enhance the bookstore aspect of the Abacus stores, the firm maintains a great commitment to the selection of personnel with the aim of improving the attention to readers.
Recently, Abacus has merged with the Som cooperative —which includes brands such as Sàpiens, Petit Sàpiens, El Món d’Ahir, Cuina, Descobrir, Arrels, Ara Llibres, Amsterdam llibres, La Casa dels Clàssics or Atlas of the Future, among others— with the aim of building a country project in the fields of culture, education and cooperativism. Abacus has 48 establishments in Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands
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The Pictet group, founded in 1805 and headquartered in Geneva, manages €653 billion in assets. Freo, a real estate asset management company founded in 1996, has €2 billion under management. The Pictet group is a collective company owned by eight managing partners, with succession and transmission principles that have remained unchanged since its foundation in 1805. It only offers wealth management, asset management, alternative investment and other services. asset-related services. The Group does not carry out investment banking activities nor does it grant commercial loans.
The group is one of the leading independent wealth and asset managers in Europe with 27 offices in 17 countries worldwide, Pictet Alternative Advisors (PAA) is an independent business line within the Pictet group, responsible for direct and indirect investments in ‘ hedge funds, private equity’ and real estate assets for both private and institutional clients. PAA employs close to 100 alternative investment specialists and manages USD36.2bn, with USD7.1bn in hedge funds, USD21.9bn in private equity and USD4.3bn in real estate assets (at the end of March 2022).