Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield

**Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield SE** (previously **Unibail-Rodamco SE**) is a European commercial real estate company headquartered in Paris, France. Its history originates with the formation of two separate shopping centre operators, Unibail (founded in France in 1968) and Rodamco Europe (founded in the Netherlands in 1999), which merged in 2007 and became a *societas Europaea* in 2009. The company merged with Australian shopping centre operator Westfield Corporation in June 2018.

As of 2018, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield is the largest commercial real estate company in Europe, and is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index. Its portfolio consists of retail property, office buildings, and convention centers within Europe and North America.

## History

### Background

Unibail was founded in 1968 as a finance-leasing unit by a company called Worms & Cie. In 1991, Unibail started focusing on the property investment sector, and phased out involvement in lease financing. It built a property portfolio of close to 30 shopping centres across France – including the Forum des Halles and the arcade within CNIT – and substantial office properties in Paris and La Défense – including the Tour Ariane and the Paris Expo group of convention centres. Rodamco Europe formed in 1999 when Rodamco, a property investment fund set up by the Dutch asset management group Robeco in 1979, broke up into various independent listed companies covering different parts of the world. Rodamco Europe subsequently collected a portfolio primarily consisting of shopping centres and other retail spaces across 14 European countries, along with some office property in France and the Netherlands, acquiring smaller European rivals in the process.

### 2007–2017: Unibail-Rodamco

On April 10, 2007, Rodamco Europe announced an agreement to conduct a merger of equals with Unibail to create the largest publicly traded property company in Europe. The merger was confirmed on June 21, 2007, after Unibail announced the acquisition of 80% of Rodamco's shares, making its offer for the remainder unconditional. The merged entity took effect as a *société anonyme* under the new name Unibail-Rodamco on June 25, 2007.

On June 1, 2011, Unibail-Rodamco hired former FNAC CEO Christophe Cuvillier as the new COO. In collaboration with CEO and Chairman of the Board Guillaume Poitrinal, he led the company to five years of growth in spite of tough economic conditions.

In May 2015, Unibail revealed it had signed an agreement with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board to sell its 46.1% stake in German shopping mall operator MFI AG for €394 million.

### 2018–present: Merger with Westfield

In December 2017, Unibail merged with Westfield Corporation, which operates 70+ shopping centres in Oceania, the US and the UK, for a reported price of US$24.8 billion. The deal was completed in June 2018, and the shopping centres owned by Unibail-Rodamco before the merger had their names modified to have the Westfield brand, with 10 flagships starting in September 2019.

In January 2020, Unibail closed the acquisition of Tanger Outlets for $200 million and announced all outlets would be rebranded to Westfield Outlets.

In November 2020, Colin Dyer resigned as supervisory-board chairman following a shareholder meeting that rejected a plan put forward by the board to raise capital of 3.5 billion euros ($4.15 billion). Dyer remains on the board but has been replaced as chairman by former Unibail CEO, Leon Bressler. Bressler is also part of a consortium of shareholders and investors who had opposed the capital increase and other proposed strategies.

## Corporate affairs

### Management

* Christophe Cuvillier – Group Chief Executive Officer
* Jaap L. Tonckens – Group Chief Financial Officer
* Astrid Panoysan – Group Chief Resources Officer
* Olivier Bossard – Group Chief Development Officer
* Jean-Marie Tritant – Chief Operating Officer (transitional until January 1st, 2021)
* Domenic Lowe – Chief operating officer U.S.
* Michel Dessolain – Chief Operating Officer (Europe)
* Peter Miller – Chief Operating Officer (UK, Italy, Benelux)
* Fabrice Mouchel – Chief Financial Officer (Europe)
* Gerard Sieben – Chief Financial Officer (WFD Unibail-Rodamco N.V.)

On November 19th, 2020, it was announced that Jean-Marie Tritant would take over as group CEO and management-board chairman as of January 1st, 2021. Tritant has left his previous position URW's operations in the U.S immediately. He will act as the group's chief operating officer during a transition phase that began on November 19th.

### Shareholders

Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield has a 100% free float; no shareholder holds more than 10% of the share capital. The following represents the shareholder structure as of May 11, 2020:

* BlackRock – 7.7%
* APG Asset Management – 5.0%
* State Street Global Advisors – 4.9%
* Citigroup Global Markets Ltd – 4.8%
* Norges Bank – 4.00%
* Other – 73.6%

### Indexes

Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield is listed in several indexes, including:

* FTSE4Good (since 2008)
* Dow Jones Sustainability Index (World since 2008 and Europe since 2010)
* Advanced Sustainability Performance Eurozone Index (since 2010)
* Ethibel Sustainability Index (since 2011)
* ECPI Index (since 2011)
* STOXX Global ESG Leaders Index (since 2011)
* Standard Ethics French Index (since 2015)

Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield is rated A by Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings.

In 2015, Standard Ethics Aei has given a rating to Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield in order to include it in its Standard Ethics French Index.

## Assets

Main article: Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield/Properties

To conceive and design its buildings, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield works with high-end architectural firms like Thomas Mayne of Morphosis firm, Herzog & de Meuron, RIADH group (De La Hoz, Cottrell, Michelangeli), the firm Architecture Farshid Moussavi, Cuno & Jean Brullmann Crochon-Luc, Jean-Paul Viguier, Epstein & Glaiman / Recevki Architecture, Araldo Cossutta & Ponte, and Arte-Charpentier.