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Confrontés à de graves difficultés financières, les deux gestionnaires de maisons de retraite cotés en Bourse ont dû lancer des plans de sauvetage pour éviter la déroute. Ce mardi 21 novembre, la gestion des Ehpad privés et le scandale Orpea sont d’ailleurs au menu des débats à l’Assemblée, qui examine le projet de loi « bien vieillir ».

Sale temps pour les géants des Ehpad. Après Orpea, aux prises avec une dette de 9,3 milliards d’euros, son rival Clariane (ex-Korian) d’une taille équivalente (4,5 milliards d’euros de chiffre d’affaires) se trouve à son tour dans l’impasse financière. Le groupe risque le défaut de paiement dans les prochains mois, plombé par l’accès restreint au crédit et la hausse des taux d’intérêt. En jeu, des échéances d’environ 650 millions d’euros à honorer d’ici à juin 2024, pour un endettement global de 4 milliards.

Au pied du mur, sa directrice générale, Sophie Boissard, a dévoilé le 14 novembre un plan de refinancement de 1,5 milliard d’euros. « Dans le contexte économique que l’on connaît et avec l’affaire Orpea dans le secteur, le refinancement est un challenge », a justifié l’ancienne haut-fonctionnaire, passée par le ministère du Travail, de l’Economie et le Conseil d’Etat.

Sale temps pour les géants des Ehpad. Après Orpea, aux prises avec une dette de 9,3 milliards d’euros, son rival Clariane (ex-Korian) d’une taille équivalente (4,5 milliards d’euros de chiffre d’affaires) se trouve à son tour dans l’impasse financière. Le groupe risque le défaut de paiement dans les prochains mois, plombé par l’accès restreint au crédit et la hausse des taux d’intérêt. En jeu, des échéances d’environ 650 millions d’euros à honorer d’ici à juin 2024, pour un endettement global de 4 milliards.

Au pied du mur, sa directrice générale, Sophie Boissard, a dévoilé le 14 novembre un plan de refinancement de 1,5 milliard d’euros. « Dans le contexte économique que l’on connaît et avec l’affaire Orpea dans le secteur, le refinancement est un challenge », a justifié l’ancienne haut-fonctionnaire, passée par le ministère du Travail, de l’Economie et le Conseil d’Etat.

Depuis la parution du livre-choc Les Fossoyeurs du journaliste Victor Castanet début 2022, qui a révélé des maltraitances de résidents et des malversations financières sous l’ancienne direction d’Orpea, la galaxie des Ehpad souffre par ricochet. Le sujet est même au menu des débats de l’Assemblée ce mardi 21 novembre, alors que les députés examinent en ce moment le projet de loi « bien vieillir ». Malgré le profil solide de Sophie Boissard, qui a notamment géré les actifs immobiliers de la SNCF, l’un des enjeux pour le groupe d’Ehpad, et malgré la transformation de Clariane en « entreprise à mission » en juin, rien n’y fait. Les banques ne suivent plus.

Clariane pas en « crise opérationnelle »

Heureusement, la normalienne et énarque a trouvé son chevalier blanc : Crédit agricole Assurances. La filiale de la deuxième banque française, premier actionnaire du groupe avec 24,8 % du capital, va financer presque tous les volets de son plan, qui prévoit des partenariats immobiliers, une augmentation de capital de 300 millions d’euros et 1 milliard d’euros de cessions d’actifs, notamment aux Pays-Bas et en Belgique. Un appui réconfortant, même si Clariane n’est pas en « crise opérationnelle », insiste Sophie Boissard. Pour preuve : la belle progression de son chiffre d’affaires (+9 %) et la remontée du taux d’occupation de ses établissements (à 88 %) sur les neuf premiers mois de l’année.

Son homologue à la tête d’Orpea, le polytechnicien et ingénieur des Ponts et Chaussées Laurent Guillot, ne peut pas en dire autant. Au premier semestre, le groupe (4,7 milliards d’euros de chiffre d’affaires) a creusé ses pertes. « Si le taux d’occupation progresse, sauf pour les maisons de retraite en France, le choix d’investir pour nos équipes et l’augmentation de nos coûts ne sont pas entièrement compensés par la progression de nos prix », a expliqué le directeur général, nommé à l’été 2022 en plein chaos, après vingt ans de carrière chez Saint-Gobain, notamment en tant que directeur financier.

La Caisse des dépôts, chevalier blanc d’Orpea

Missionné pour restaurer la confiance, ce fin connaisseur de l’administration, passé par plusieurs ministères, attend, lui aussi, son sauveur. Le 13 novembre, la veille de l’annonce de Clariane, il a donné le coup d’envoi de la recapitalisation titanesque, pour un montant total de 5,4 milliards d’euros, qui prépare le terrain à l’arrivée de son futur actionnaire majoritaire (50,2 % du capital), la Caisse des dépôts, en équipe avec CNP Assurances, la Maif et MACSF, en fin d’année. Une bataille gagnée de haute lutte après des tractations à rebondissements, marquées par la fronde de certains créanciers et actionnaires.

Stability review warns of contagion risk for wider financial sector from surging losses in real estate

Eurozone property companies are being hit by surging losses and some will struggle to support their debts, which have risen to a higher level than before the 2008 financial crisis, the European Central Bank has warned.

The losses, which the ECB said would have “consequences for the resilience of banks’ loan books”, stem from sharply higher financing costs, falling commercial property values, weaker rental income and rising concerns about the energy efficiency of buildings.

The central bank said signs of stress in the commercial property sector, which accounts for 10 per cent of all eurozone bank loans, “have the potential to significantly amplify an adverse scenario” and would “drive large losses” in the wider financial system.

The average debt of larger European property companies has risen above 10 times their earnings, “close to or above pre-global financial crisis levels”, the ECB said in part of its twice-yearly financial stability review. The full review is out on Wednesday, but the ECB published its concerns on commercial real estate a day early.

Rises in ECB interest rates have hit the sector hard. It now costs 2.6 percentage points more to finance the purchase of commercial real estate assets in Europe than it did before rates started increasing last year, according to eurozone credit registry data. The central bank’s benchmark deposit rate is now 4 per cent — up from minus 0.5 per cent before the tightening cycle began.

The rise in borrowing costs would pose a refinancing challenge for the most indebted companies, the ECB said, pointing out that rating agency Moody’s Analytics had cut ratings or outlooks on 40 per cent of European real estate companies in the year to March 2023.

The problem is most acute in countries such as Finland, Ireland, Greece and the Baltic states, where more than 90 per cent of loans to commercial property companies are at variable rates or mature in the next two years. This compares with only 30 per cent in the Netherlands and 40 per cent in Germany. 

“Business models established on the basis of pre-pandemic profitability and low-for-long interest rates may become unviable over the medium term,” the ECB warned.

The sharp downturn in eurozone commercial real estate is underlined by the 47 per cent drop in the number of transactions in the sector in the first half of this year, compared with the same period in 2022. 

The share of bank loans to lossmaking real estate borrowers is expected to double to 26 per cent, the ECB said. But it warned this could rise to half of all loans if turnover in the sector fell by a fifth and the tighter financing conditions persisted for another two years.

The central bank said debt levels were likely to “deteriorate further as these firms’ earnings decline and commercial real estate prices are revalued downwards”. 

Shifts to homeworking and online retail have hit demand for offices and shops, weighing on rental income for property owners, while older and lower quality buildings are suffering bigger drops in rents as tenants focus more on a building’s energy efficiency.

In a sign of how investors believe the price of commercial property has fallen sharply in the past two years, the market value of listed eurozone property companies has fallen from 110 per cent of the book value of their assets to less than 70 per cent.

Europe’s residential property sector has faced similar challenges. But the ECB said a strong labour market was helping to keep mortgage defaults low, while housing shortages and rising construction costs were providing support to prices.

Telecoms group owned by Franco-Israeli billionaire Patrick Drahi seeks ways to cut $60bn debt pile

Heavily indebted telecoms group Altice has agreed to sell a majority stake in its data centre business to a Morgan Stanley infrastructure fund as French-Israeli billionaire owner Patrick Drahi works to shore up the group’s finances. 

Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners will take a 70 per cent stake in the network of 257 data centres across France at an enterprise value of €764mn. That is a multiple of around 29 times the company’s 2023 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of €26mn.

The sale is the first deal announced since Drahi said over the summer that Altice would explore selling assets alongside refinancing the group’s upcoming debt maturities. Investor concerns have mounted over the company’s $60bn debt pile — much of which was used to fund its expansion through acquisitions in the past decade — as interest rates have risen.

The company said the “transaction reflects Altice France’s strategy around balance sheet management, which notably includes executing inorganic deleveraging through proactive management of our non-core asset portfolio”.

The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2024 and will include a “build-to-suit” agreement with French mobile operator SFR that is expected to generate about €175mn over the next seven years.

Altice International, one of the three main companies of the group, borrowed €800mn from investors in October through a term loan in order to repay bonds maturing in 2025 at a rate of 5 percentage points over a floating rate benchmark. 

Investment banks including Lazard, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and BNP Paribas have also been tapped to explore the sale of various assets, including a stake in SFR for around €3bn and Altice’s operations in Dominican Republic and Portugal. Bankers have also speculated Drahi could sell French news network BFM and some of his 25 per cent stake in BT. 

“The impression is that everything could be for sale,” said a banker in Paris.

Liberty Media chair John Malone, known as the “cable cowboy” and whose use of leverage to fund deals served as a model for Drahi’s own ambitions, has become critical of the group’s handling of its debt pile.

“We’re in a period where we’re going to see very serious distress in our industry for companies that didn’t leverage prudently,” Malone said in a November interview with CNBC, pointing to Altice in particular. “It’s all toast . . . [Drahi]’s basically admitted that everything’s for sale, but you have all of this distressed debt that’s going to mature or go into default if it has covenants.”

A push into the US market has gone poorly for Drahi: since spinning off Altice USA from its European parent in 2018, the share price has collapsed by 93 per cent and the company has been losing subscribers.

The race to manage Altice’s debt comes as one of the group’s most senior executives was arrested over the summer in a corruption probe. The scandal involves the group’s co-founder Armando Pereira, who was placed under house arrest in Portugal in July, further spooking investors.

The criminal investigation centres on whether the 71-year-old executive worked with others to rig Altice’s procurement processes, with allegations that hundreds of millions of euros appeared to have been siphoned off illicitly. Altice has suspended a string of other senior executives around the world in the wake of the corruption probe. Pereira has previously denied wrongdoing.

The musician and fashion star launched an auction house that aims to take on Christie’s and Sotheby’s by selling items from his personal collection—and from those of his friends

Louis Vuitton’s mammoth monogram luggage already sells for tens of thousands of dollars on the resale market. But you know what makes a trunk even more valuable? If it was previously owned by Pharrell Williams.

Late last year, the Grammy winner and men’s creative director of Louis Vuitton added to his already jammed schedule by opening Joopiter, his very own auction house.

The company’s first sale plucked from Williams’s holding, including an over 3-foot long Louis Vuitton trunk that fetched $121,250, well above its $35,000 high estimate. Other lots included a Jacob & Co. N.E.R.D. pendant chain that sold for $2.18 million (purchased by fellow rapper Drake), a gold Audemars Piguet wristwatch that sold for $187,500 and a one-off, gold-plated blingy BlackBerry phone that fetched $45,000.

“I got so many things that I can’t keep up,” said Williams, who was visiting New York this month from his home in Paris. “I feel like they would be better in other hands, enriching other people’s lives.”

Williams tends to dream at megascale—his first Louis Vuitton show involved a Jay-Z performance that shut down a major artery in Paris. And so, when Williams went into Marie Kondo mode, he wasn’t content to merely offload his excess collectibles at Sotheby’s as other stars have. Instead, he established his own auction house, subsequently hiring executives who worked at Christie’s and Sotheby’s to help organize his sales. It was the auction-market equivalent to buying the casino, rather than tossing a few quarters into the slot machine.

“I was like, ‘oh this is not a one-off,’” said Williams. “I’m gonna do this and provide a platform for my friends.” The name Joopiter stems from Williams’s interest in astrology.

Since that first sale last November, subsequent sales have pulled from the holdings of those friends like fashion-world journeywoman Sarah Andelman, jeweler to the stars Lorraine Schwartz and, most recently, the Japanese fashion designer who runs creative at Kenzo, Nigo.

Williams said that celeb provenance is a bid multiplier. He imagined a bidder’s thought process: “That’s the jacket that person wore. Can I wear that jacket? Will I feel like that if I wear that jacket?”

Joopiter’s launch is a signal of a shifting auction market. Buyers are getting younger and their tastes are changing accordingly. In 2022, Sotheby’s reported a record number of bidders under 40, while auction house Phillips said nearly a third of its buyers were millennials. Establishment auction houses now have promoted auctioneers capable of specializing in guitars, Nikes, sports jerseys and watches. What a Basquiat is to one bidder, a pair of Jay-Z-signed Bape Sta sneakers is to another.

More than that, celebrity ownership remains a perennial draw for bidders. This summer, Sotheby’s hosted a blockbuster auction from the estate of Freddie Mercury. Days later, it sold Princess Diana’s sheep sweater for over $1 million. That month, Christie’s sold a copy of “The Great Gatsby,” owned by Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, for over $280,000.

Joopiter takes a 25% buyers’ premium on items sold, which is standard for bigger auction houses. The Nigo sale, which wrapped last week, had a 100% sell-through rate, with 80% of its pieces selling for above their high estimates. Nigo-owned Louis Vuitton trunks and a Jacob & Co. white gold and diamond pendant sold with the gavel for $180,000 and $260,000, respectively, before the house tacked on its commission.

To endure as a long-term business, one that can compete with centuries-old institutions like Sotheby’s, Joopiter will need to position itself as more than a mere celebrity clearinghouse.

In May, Joopiter brought on Caitlin Donovan, a Christie’s veteran, to be its head of global sales. This month, John Auerbach, who worked at both Sotheby’s and Christie’s, started as CEO. At a downtown New York preview for the house’s last auction this month, Auerbach—dressed in a smart navy Dior sport coat—stood alongside Williams in his weighty Louis Vuitton varsity jacket.

Aside from the Andelman and Nigo auctions, Joopiter hosted a sale of works by the late American painter Ernie Barnes, which had never been publicly exhibited before. The highlight of that sale was “Mentors,” a 2008 Barnes painting depicting a group of Black men huddled together, which sold for $187,500.

“It is nice doing sales for the really impressive friends of Pharrell, but I do think that Joopiter is for longevity and the big vision is much larger than that,” Donovan said.

Still, by dint of who its founder is, Joopiter’s core audience is likely to remain those interested in scarce sneakers, Paul Bunyan-scaled chains, works by artists who have collaborated with Dior or Louis Vuitton (Takashi Murakami, Kaws, Daniel Arsham) and clothes more likely to be displayed than worn.

That blue-chip Barnes auction was followed up by “Chasing Grails,” an auction of three distinct Nike Dunk prototypes that sold for as high as $37,500 each.

“I don’t think that we are necessarily going to be fighting with a traditional house for a rare books auction,” said Donovan. As she describes it, Joopiter is interested in “sales that have cultural relevance and appeal more to the modern collector.”

Williams, with his glittery Rolodex, is well positioned to bring in big-name sales.

“Pharrell started it, and I wanted to support it,” Nigo said during a preview of his Joopiter sale “From Me To You,” encircled by his artifacts like a pair of Levi’s rodeo clown jeans in size 54 and a quintet of Peanuts sweatshirts from the 1960s. They sold last week for $10,000 and $6,250 respectively.

The New York preview of the auction was coupled with a pop-up for Nigo’s streetwear label, Human Made, drawing in an abundance of shoppers to both buy $225 hoodies and glimpse rare Chanel Reebok sneakers that would eventually sell for $11,250.

As he’s gotten older, Nigo said his tastes have changed—fewer Levi’s, more pottery—and he decided it was time to clear things out. (He had previously hosted three sales with Sotheby’s.)

Nigo said the 60 items in his Joopiter auction represented just about 1% of his archive. “I don’t really look at things so much these days, but it’s all stored in the hard disk in my head,” he said.

At the preview, Donovan said she hoped she could convince Nigo to offer some more of his holdings for future auctions, particularly his Pierre Jeanneret furniture.

According to the company, in the future Joopiter plans to open an online marketplace that will operate between auctions—bringing the company even closer to a Pharrellified eBay. Said Williams, “My friends aren’t just in my immediate circumference.” In other words, if you’ve got a pair of rodeo clown jeans lying around, you could be his friend, too.

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