Centurion Reverses Its Plans To Debut On The MAB

19 October 2017 – Expansión

About turn. Centurion Real Estate, which was on the verge of making its debut as a listed real estate investment company (Socimi) on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB) in the summer has shelved its plans altogether.

The company, headquartered in Barcelona, is controlled 100% by Scranton Enterprises, a Dutch holding company in which the Spanish multinational blood product company Grifols holds an 8.67% stake, and in which other shareholders, managers, directors and former directors of the group also hold stakes.

The links with Grifols go further, given that Centurion is the owner of four buildings occupied by the company in Barcelona and Sant Cugat del Vallès. Centurion has not only halted its debut on the MAB, it has also renounced its status as a Socimi. The measure forms part of a series of statutory amendments, which affect both the governance system and the corporate purpose of the company.

The real estate entity has dismantled its Board of Directors, which was chaired by Juan Javier Roura, the former Head of Treasury and Risk Control at Grifols, and on which Tomás Dagá sat, a director of the Catalan hospital equipment company, amongst others.

In its new phase, the firm will have three joint administrators, namely Juan Javier Roura, Jordi Fábregas and Luca Giacomo Tassan Din. Fábregas is a lawyer and was one of the founding partners of the law firm Osborne Clarke in Spain, whilst Tassan Din represents Scranton on the Board of Hemav, a drone company in which the holding company owns a stake.

The real estate company Centurion has now defined its corporate purpose to involve the buying, brokering, leasing, administering and operating of any kind of urban or rural property. The firm may also work on any kind of building development or construction project.

One of the reasons that could have led to Centurion’s decision to abandon its status as a Socimi is the tightening up of the requirements to debut on the MAB, on the basis of a regulation that entered into force in August, which demands that companies have minority investors in their shareholdings, that own at least 25% of their share capital or €2 million of their shares.

Centurion’s most iconic asset is the retail premises of the former headquarters of Winterthur in Barcelona, for which it paid €50 million in March.

Original story: Expansión (by J. Orihuel)

Translation: Carmel Drake