Cominar is the owner, operator, investor, and developer of real estate across retail, office, residential and mixed-use asset classes, mainly in Québec. Before March 1, 2022, Cominar was a

publicly traded A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (list ...

real estate investment trust A real estate investment trust (REIT) is a company that owns, and in most cases operates, income-producing real estate. REITs own many types of commercial real estate, including office and apartment buildings, warehouses, hospitals, shopping cente ...

(REIT) based in

Quebec City Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Communauté métrop ...

, Canada. On February 28, 2022, Cominar managed a portfolio consisting of 306 office, retail, and industrial properties, totalling 35.4 million square feet. These properties were located in the province of Quebec and

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

. Since then, the company has been selling assets to pay back its debts and finance new development plans. A new management team has been leading Cominar.

History

Cominar was founded in 1965 by Jules Dallaire. The company was originally focused on building apartments in Quebec City. In 1973, it expanded into the construction of condominiums. In 1986, Cominar developed Place de la Cité in Sainte-Foy, a borough of Quebec City, an office tower set above a shopping concourse. In 1998, Cominar was listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange as a FPI Cominar (where FPI stands for Fonds de placement immobilier; an unincorporated closed-end investment trust). At the time, Cominar had 51 properties totalling 3.1 million sq.ft. of leasable space, and claimed to be the first fully integrated real estate investment trust in Canada. In 2009, Cominar completed a public offering of REIT units for a total of $575M (Canadian dollars). In 2012, Cominar purchased 68 properties representing 4.3 million sq.ft. from

GE Capital GE Capital is the financial services division of General Electric. The company currently only runs one division, GE Energy Financial Services. It had provided additional services in the past; however, those units were sold between 2013 and 2018 ...

Real Estate (Canada). In 2014, it announced the purchase of $1.35 Billion (Canadian dollars) of properties (a total of 5 million sq.ft.) from

Ivanhoé Cambridge Ivanhoé Cambridge Inc. is a Canadian real estate company based in Montreal, Quebec. With assets around the globe, its areas of activity are investment, development, asset management, operations and leasing. The company's real estate portfolio c ...

, a real estate subsidiary of the

Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ; ) is an institutional investor that manages several public and parapublic pension plans and insurance programs in Quebec. CDPQ was founded in 1965 by an act of the National Assembly, under the go ...

. In August 2017, following a downgrading of its credit rating by the global credit rating agency

DBRS DBRS Morningstar is a global credit rating agency (CRA) founded in 1976 (originally known as Dominion Bond Rating Service in Toronto). DBRS was acquired by the global financial services firm Morningstar, Inc. in 2019 for approximately $700 millio ...

, Cominar announced the divestment of 14% of its holdings for a total of 100 properties.< In December 2017, Cominar announced the sale of 97 properties for $1.14 billion (Canadian Dollars). As a result of the sale, the company no longer owned properties in Western Canada, in the Toronto area or the Atlantic provinces. Overall, Cominar's property holdings were limited to Ontario and Quebec. At about the same time, Cominar's CEO, Michel Dallaire, was replaced by Sylvain Cossette. In September 2020, Cominar announced the appointment of Antoine Tronquoy as CFO and Nathalie Rousseau as Executive Vice President, Asset Management and Transactions. On March 1, 2022, Canderel-led consortium acquires Cominar for $5.7b, $11.75 per unit, in an all-cash transaction, with its stocks being delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange.https://www.cominar.com/en/press-room/press-releases/1139/-cominar-announces-closing-of-arrangement-transaction/ {{Bare URL PDF, date=March 2022

References

External links

Cominar page on Toronto Stock Exchange website
Real estate companies established in 1965 Financial services companies established in 1965 1965 establishments in Quebec Companies based in Quebec City Companies formerly listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange Morningstar National Bank Québec Index