Saba approaches the new era with Interparking

Since its founding in 1966, Saba has always been linked to the city of Barcelona. Its origins date back to a group of developers who opened several parking garages in key locations in the Catalan capital, such as Plaça Catalunya. There were 60 parking garages with a total of 4,000 spaces. Today, Saba (an acronym for Barcelona Parking Society), chaired by Salvador Alemany, has a thousand parking garages and approximately 340,000 spaces.

Following the agreement between Criteria and the Belgian company Interparking, Saba will be integrated into the new group in the coming months, which will be controlled from Brussels.

The transaction involves the sale of the parking management company Saba to Interparking. The purchase, which has been negotiated with ups and downs for several years, will create a giant in the sector. In exchange for the sale, Criteria, the holding company of La Caixa Foundation's holdings, will receive an undisclosed sum and 18% of the shares in the new Interparking. Although the price was not disclosed, the transaction is valued at around €1.3 billion. Criteria had valued Saba in its accounts at around €700 million, plus approximately €500 million in debt held by the company.

Results Following the spin-off of Abertis, Saba has doubled its revenues, although it closed the last year with losses.

Despite the shares that the La Caixa holding company will receive, Criteria will not be the largest shareholder in the new European parking group. The two main investors will remain the current ones: AG Insurance (through its subsidiary AG Real Estate) and APG. The agreement reached provides Criteria Caixa with the right to propose two members of Interparking's board of directors.

In 2011, Saba was part of the Abertis Group. This group, apart from its parking facilities, also had interests in the motorway concession business, airports, telecommunications services, and logistics centers. It was 14 years ago that Saba became an independent company and left the Abertis umbrella. During this period, the number of countries where Saba operates has doubled, from 5 to 9; its presence in cities has tripled, from 60 to 189; the number of parking lots has multiplied by five, from 203 to 1,000; and the number of spaces has multiplied by 2.5, from 136,000 to the aforementioned 340,000, as detailed in the graph.

New group The merger creates the largest company in the sector in Europe, with more than 2,000 parking lots.

"We've financed all of this growth with company funds. The company hasn't ever asked for a single euro from its shareholders during this period. And we're practically at the same debt level we had in 2011," reflects Josep Martínez Vila, Saba's CEO.

Following the spin-off of Abertis, revenues have doubled, from €173 million to €318 million, and gross profit has multiplied by 2.5: from €58 million to €144 million. However, net results have been poor. Last year, for example, the company recorded losses of €14 million.

Regarding the integration into Interparking, it remains to be seen what role Barcelona will play in the new company and what impact the merger will have on employment at the Spanish company. Saba currently has a workforce of 2,065 employees.

Read also Criteria sells Saba to the Belgian company Interparking and becomes a shareholder in the new company. Eduardo Magallón

"We can provide a company with highly relevant technological quality. Now, and taking advantage of all the improvements in camera quality, we're going to focus, let's say, all parking operations on license plate reading," says Martínez Vila, highlighting the Catalan company's strengths.

Saba will also bring to the new group some markets where Interparking was not present, such as the United Kingdom. "Last year, we won a high-speed rail management contract in the United Kingdom. It's a new operation for us and complements well the one we did with London Transport," according to Martínez Vila.

Since 2011, the company has invested €830 million in expansion projects, such as the contracts with Bamsa, Adif (renewed in 2024), the acquisition of Portugal's fourth-largest parking operator, CPE, and the entry into four new countries, among others.

The merger creates the largest company in the sector in Europe, with more than 2,000 parking lots. They are present in 16 countries in Europe and Latin America, with nearly 800,000 parking spaces and nearly 8,000 electric charging points. "We have a huge opportunity with the large group that has been created," insists the CEO.

The transaction represents the largest transport infrastructure M&A transaction in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa in recent years and the largest Spanish-Belgian cross-border transaction in history, according to Jefferies, advisor to Interparking, APG, and AG on the transaction, when the agreement to carry it out was revealed.