The American real estate investment fund W.P. Carey has acquired a total of 26 funeral homes from the funeral company Mémora for 130 million euros, which will now manage them under a thirty-year lease. The company has not disclosed the annual cost of the leases.
Most of these assets ---20% of Mémora's entire network of funeral homes in Spain--- are located in the funeral group's most important market, Barcelona and the cities of the metropolitan area, where Mémora has approximately a 35% market share. The funeral company controls 85% of Serveis Funeraris de Barcelona (SFB), while the remaining 15% is held by the Basque group Asistea ---a subsidiary of Catalana Occidente---, which in 2020 acquired the stake from the Barcelona City Council.
The operation is part of Mémora's growth plan, which involves "the opening of new facilities over the next decade," and allows "maximizing the value of assets," according to its CEO, Juan Jesús Domingo.
Founded in 1997, Mémora is currently owned by Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, the largest Canadian pension fund for professionals, which acquired the Barcelona-based company in 2017 for 500 million euros. The group currently consists of a workforce of approximately 1,500 people who serve the 131 funeral homes and crematories, 16 cemeteries, and 42 offices that Mémora has spread across Spain and Portugal.
"Mémora's solid position in the Iberian market, coupled with the importance of these assets and the long-term lease, have made this transaction perfectly suited to our investment criteria, while expanding the diversity of our European portfolio," said Christopher Mertlitz, WP Carey's Head of European Investments.