Faced with the downturn in the real estate sector in France, VINCI Immobilier recorded a marked decline in its business. In the medium and long term, it should nevertheless benefit from the structural need for residential and business property.
VINCI Immobilier contended with very difficult market conditions in France in 2023. The spike in interest rates increased borrowing costs, which weighed heavily on demand from homebuyers and prompted a growing number of investors to camp in a wait-and-see position. The fact that costs of materials rose sharply while land prices remained high undermined cost-effectiveness in property development projects. Consolidated revenue, as a result, fell by 19% to €1.2 billion.
In line with the Group’s long-term venture, VINCI Immobilier continued to roll out the two complementary commitments that form the bedrock of its environmental policy. The first one is to meet its “no net land take” target for all its property development projects in France by 2030. To accomplish this, VINCI Immobilier will offset all the soil it seals on new projects by unsealing an area of the same size on other projects. The second commitment is to generate more than 50% of its revenue from land recycling, also by 2030, by revamping urban brownfields and rehabilitating obsolete buildings. One example of this is the Evasyon programme in Lyon in eastern France (5,000 sq. metres of offices, 86 student social housing units and a 146-unit Bikube residence), which will be built entirely on soil that is already sealed and involve renaturing more than 2,000 sq. metres with green spaces in open ground and an urban cool island in place of an existing concrete outdoor car park.
RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY
The number of reserved homes was down 30% compared with 2022, at 4,214 units, despite improvement in the fourth quarter resulting from en-bloc sales as well as reservations from low-rent housing organisations and institutional clients. New projects declined by 36% year on year, with work starting on 3,972 units in 2023. The highlights in 2023 included handover of the first phase of the Universeine urban complex in Saint-Denis, north of Paris. Universeine is part of the Athletes’ Village under construction for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games which include VINCI among their official supporters. After the Games, work will begin on the Legacy phase in view of delivering a total of 1,056 units to homebuyers, investors and social housing organisations. In addition, 4,300 sq. metres of shops together with 65,630 sq. metres of office space are planned in the complex, including 46,000 sq. metres for the French Ministry of the Interior. Two of this programme’s underlying features industrial brownfield redevelopment along with repurposing are typical of VINCI Immobilier’s circular approach to urban planning. The main projects handed over during the year include the Picot student residence in Marseille (114 units), in south-east France, the Avant-Garde programme in Bordeaux (195 units), in south-west France, the Oasis Parc programme in Lyon (193 units) and the Effusion programme in Mulhouse (153 units), in north-east France.
The To-Lyon project combines mixed-use development with bold architecture. It comprises a 170-metre-high office building, a four-star Pullman hotel with 168 rooms, and 3,500 sq. metres for retail space, lobbies and shared services.