Portugal 
Italy 
Greece 
Mutua And EQT Create The Third Largest Group Of Underground Car Parks In Spain
12/08/2014 – El Confidencial
Mutua Madrileña and the Nordic group EQT Infrastructure have reached an agreement to merge their car park businesses, Mutuapark y Parkia, respectively, a transaction which will give rise to the third largest private underground car park operator in Spain.
The new company will have a portfolio of almost 25.000 parking spaces distributed across 54 car parks and revenues of 30 million euros. The car parks of the new company have an average of around 32 years of life remaining on their licenses and are distributed across various autonomous regions such as Madrid, Catalonia, Galicia, Andalusia and the Canary Islands, among others.
With this move, what Mutua and EQT are trying to achieve is to prepare themselves for the future consolidation of the sector, which is still very fragmented compared with the situation in other comparable European markets.
Mutuapark, which manages 23 car parks in Spain with close to 8.000 parking spaces, was a business acquired in 2010 by FCC and combines owned car parks with licensed ones. Parkia, for its part, is present in Spain and Andorra, with 31 car parks (25 in Spain and 6 in the Principality) and 17.000 parking spaces. The business was acquired by the Acciona group in 2011.
In the new company created by the merger, EQT will have 66,8% of the share capital and Mutua Madrileña 33,2%. The transaction is waiting to receive the relevant administrative authorisations, which means it is likely to be completed in the fourth quarter of this year.
For Mutua Madrileña, this merger forms part of its strategy of diversifying its investments in businesses, always with the intention of achieving attractive profits in the long term with a moderate risk profile.
In the case of EQT, the agreement is based on its philosophy to invest in medium-sized companies of a high quality, which are market leaders in growing sectors, with the potential to become first line companies.
Original article: El Confidencial
Translation: Aura REE