SPS plans Stücki expansion and Tertianum IPO

While the Stücki Shopping Center in Basel is suffering from shopping tourism to foreign countries near the border, the associated Stücki Business Park is booming. Demand is now so high that it can no longer be met, said Peter Lehmann, CIO at Swiss Prime Site, at the presentation of the annual report for 2015 in Zurich. A second park with 22,000 sqm of floor space is to be built by 2021 at a cost of CHF 100 million.

It was also announced that the former headquarters of the Swiss Post in Bern is to be converted into a residential and hotel complex. Plans call for 150 high-quality apartments on 30,000 square meters of floor space and a business hotel in the three-star segment and a grocery store in the north wing. The investment volume is stated at CHF 130 million. The building permit is expected to be issued at the end of 2016, and the conversion could then be completed in 2019. SPS is currently building Switzerland's first Motel One in Basel for CHF 22.5 million, and another property of the design hotel chain is being built in Zurich.

Stock market flotation for Tertianum in sight

SPS intends to float its "Living and Housing in Old Age" business unit, which is part of the Tertianum Group, on the stock market in the medium term. This was announced by Hans Peter Wehrli, Chairman of the SPS Board of Directors. With the brands "Tertianum Residences", "Perlavita Nursing Homes", "Vitadomo Senior Centers" "SENIOcare Residential and Nursing Homes" and "BOAS Senior Care", the Tertianum Group is currently the leading private Swiss provider in the business segment "Living and Housing in Old Age", according to SPS. In the 2015 financial year, operating income of CHF 237.6 million was generated with 3,000 employees - an increase of 17.7 percent compared with the previous year's result. Operating profit (EBIT) was 8.2 million.

The Tertianum Group's residential and nursing care offerings can currently be found in a total of 67 facilities with 1,620 apartments and 2,524 nursing beds in 16 Swiss cantons. As SPS CEO René Zahnd explained, this portfolio is to be successively increased to 80 facilities by 2021. In this context, possible PPP projects with Swiss municipalities are also being considered, for example, Zahnd said. Inquiries have been made to the SPS as a project developer from the local side.

According to Hans Peter Wehrli, Chairman of the SPS Board of Directors, the Tertianum Group will add around three to four new facilities in the coming years. In view of the Group's planned IPO and the five different brands currently still operating under this umbrella (Tertianum, Perlavita, Vitadomo, SENIOcare and BOAS), he announced that this brand portfolio would be streamlined in the near future. (ah/mr)