Partners are moving into elite housing – Kommersant

Against the backdrop of falling demand for real estate under construction, developers began to unite in partnerships to increase the profitability of construction. Thus, FGC Group of Companies and Gravion Group have agreed on the joint implementation of projects in the segment of luxury housing. Thus, FGC Group of Companies will be able to enter a new segment for itself, and Gravion Group will get access to the partner’s resources. Experts expect that the crisis may lead to an increase in the number of such partnerships and the enlargement of the development market.

GK FSK Vladimir Voronin and Gravion Group Yuri Nemanezhin agreed on the joint implementation of development projects, two sources told Kommersant and confirmed the interlocutor of Kommersant, close to one of the parties. According to them, developers are now looking for sites for the construction of luxury housing, which Gravion Group specializes in. The companies declined to comment.

FGC Group builds housing in Moscow, the Moscow region, St. Petersburg, Kaluga and Vladivostok. According to the information system “Nash.Dom.RF”, the current volume of construction is 1.44 million square meters. m. In 2022, the developer’s revenue amounted to 174.1 billion rubles.

The main owner of Gravion Group is Yuri Nemanezhin, a former top manager of the Tekta Group development company. He created the Gravion Group in 2015 and planned to invest about $200 million in housing construction. But so far, Gravion has only one project in its portfolio – the construction of an apartment complex on the site of the Varshava Hotel near the Oktyabrskaya metro station in the center of Moscow. At the beginning of this year, it became known that the company could buy out a project to reconstruct a building on Zolotoy Ostrov opposite the Kremlin into a 15,000-sq. m from MR Group (see Kommersant dated January 25).

For Gravion, cooperation is essential to reduce construction costs. When such a large-scale structure as FGC Group of Companies stands behind them, it is possible to manage costs more effectively, notes Konstantin Lebedev, head of the Commonwealth Partnership’s valuation and consulting department. FGC Group has acquired a partner in the face of Gravion Group with competencies in a segment where a large developer did not work, adds partner Ricci | M&A Petr Vinogradov.

Recently, FGC has been actively entering new segments. So, a year ago, the company agreed with Kaskad Family on the implementation of joint suburban housing projects, and at the end of 2022, the developer created a structure for managing hotels and apart-hotels (see Kommersant on December 21).

Previously, partnerships among developers were mainly distributed between regional and Moscow players. The first such cooperation was beneficial for entering the capital market, the second, as a rule, attracted a partner for financing. So, Leonid Kazints’s Barkley attracted the RKS Development Group of Companies to complete the construction of the problematic Medovaya Dolina residential complex in New Moscow. And Alexander Ruchiev’s Osnova Group of Companies is building up the Rostokino transport hub in the north-east of Moscow, together with the Penza-based Risan.

However, now local players have begun to cooperate with each other. In October last year, the Rodina and MIC groups announced that they intended to implement a number of joint projects. At the beginning of this year, the developer Capital Group attracted the Summa company, a native of MR Group, Georgy Pliev, to build a skyscraper near Moscow City.

Now, against the backdrop of falling demand for housing in all segments, players are fighting to increase profitability, which can only be achieved by enlarging the market, says Konstantin Lebedev. According to Dataflat.ru estimates, in March 2023, demand for new buildings in Moscow and the Moscow region fell by 31% year-on-year, to 581,000 sq. m. m. Taking into account the current situation both in the real estate market and in the economy as a whole, the number of partnerships, as well as mergers and acquisitions in the field of development will increase, Vladislav Preobrazhensky, executive director of the Moscow Investors Club, predicts. This, in his opinion, may lead to market consolidation.

Daria Andrianova