Catalana Occidente has achieved its goal of becoming the benchmark in the Spanish funeral sector. The Barcelona-based insurance group has just announced the acquisition of 100% of Mémora, the market-leading company, whose assets it will add to those of Asistea, the subsidiary through which it operated in this business until now. The listed company controlled by the Serra family will pay 387.5 million euros for Mémora, which until now belonged to the Canadian pension fund Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board and the management team.
With this operation, Catalana Occidente becomes the owner of 100% of Serveis Funeraris de Barcelona (SFB), the former municipal company that dominates this business in the Catalan capital and where it already controlled a 15% stake. Specifically, through Asistea, the insurance company bought 15% from the Barcelona City Council in November 2020 that still remained in public hands and which Ada Colau's government team decided to put up for sale through an auction. Mémora acquired ownership of 85% of SFB in two phases: in 1998 it bought 49% of the capital, a stake it increased to 85% in 2011 by acquiring an additional 36%. Parallel to the purchase of this second package, Mémora divested from Cementiris de Barcelona (where it had 49%), the company that manages the city's nine cemeteries, which became 100% public and which the city council manages through the Barcelona de Serveis Municipals (B:SM) holding company.
Mémora, which according to Catalana Occidente has an approximate value of 600 million euros (enterprise value), has until now been in the hands of large international private equity and pension funds. Its great expansion took place during the period it was owned by the British firm 3i, which sold the company to Ontario Teachers' in 2017 for about 450 million euros. This investment group manages the savings of more than 300,000 retired and active teachers in Canada.
"This acquisition allows us to become a reference group within the funeral sector, with a wide presence in the national territory, as well as in Portugal. Our vocation is to maintain a service of the highest quality in such complicated moments for families, relying on the human and management quality of the Mémora Group," said the general director of the Catalana Occidente group, Francisco Arregui.
Mémora owns or manages 139 funeral homes, 39 crematories, 18 cemeteries, and employs approximately 1,500 professionals. The group performs about 50,000 funeral services annually and also operates in Portugal, a market where Asistea was not currently present. In 2021, the funeral company had a turnover of 188.53 million euros, up 2%, and reached an EBITDA of 47 million. For its part, Asistea is six times smaller, as its revenue in 2021 was 28.39 million. Thus, the sum of the two companies creates a group with a turnover exceeding 216 million, an EBITDA of 53 million, and a strong presence in northern and eastern Spain.
As reported to the CNMV, Catalana Occidente justifies the acquisition of Mémora by it being a "stable business," complementary to Asistea's, which allows for generating synergies and economies of scale and achieving leadership. It should be noted that the funeral sector, as well as that of nursing homes and other types of businesses linked to the silver economy, has been in the spotlight of investors for many years due to the aging population and its capacity to generate recurring income.
Despite the progressive concentration process, the Spanish funeral sector remains highly fragmented. Thus, the new group will control a market share of around 12%, with about 58,000 annual services. Asistea is the result of the merger, in 2018, of the funeral homes Funeuskadi and Nuestra Señora de los Remedios and has grown since then with other acquisitions such as that of Funeraria Aranguren. Until the purchase of Mémora, Asistea owned 31 funeral homes, 5 crematories, and 15 cemeteries in the Basque Country, Cantabria, Madrid, and Castilla y León.
The Catalana Occidente group, chaired by José María Serra Farré and with Hugo Serra as vice-chairman and CEO, is worth nearly 3.5 billion euros on the stock market and ranks fifth in the Spanish insurance sector. In parallel, it is the second world leader in the credit insurance business, where it operates through brands such as Atradius and Crédito y Caución. In 2021, Catalana's turnover grew by 7.1%, to 4.882 billion, with earnings of 468.3 million, up 73.4%. With more than 7,000 employees and four million policyholders, the company, headquartered in Sant Cugat del Vallès, operates with the brands Catalana Occidente, Plus Ultra Seguros, Seguros Bilbao and NorteHispana Seguros.