PwC advises the city of Wuppertal on the consolidation of its non-profit housing association “Gemeinnützige Wohnungsbaugesellschaft”
Hamburg, February 07, 2018
PricewaterhouseCoopers Legal AG Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft (PwC Legal) and PricewaterhouseCoopers GmbH Wirtschaftsprüfergesellschaft (PwC) provided the city of Wuppertal with comprehensive business and legal advice on the consolidation of its non-profit housing association Gemeinnützige Wohnungsbaugesellschaft mbh (“GWG”).
GWG is a communal housing association with 7,670 rental units and a managed usable area of 389,000 sq.m. As such, it covers a wide range of products and services in the real estate sector. These include among other things the rental and management of social housing, development of the social housing sector in Wuppertal and the rental and management of private housing and commercial properties. In addition, GWG is active in other areas including citizens’ advice as part of social management.
GWG got into financial difficulties as a result of management errors during the 1990s. In order to compensate for this, it started a massive purchase of real estate in the year 2000. GWG had found itself in a loss-making situation since 2010 and had been unable to achieve any turnaround despite restructuring measures. At the beginning of December 2016, the city of Wuppertal finally decided to appoint PwC as neutral expert consultant to monitor the development of consolidation strategies. True to its motto “Law and Economics”, PwC did not only assist the city of Wuppertal in setting the legal framework for consolidation, it was also instrumental in determining the economically most appropriate method.
Participating consultant teams:
PwC Legal (Hamburg):
The lead team State Aid Law headed by the partner Jan Philipp Otter in close cooperation with senior manager Dr. Christoph Anger carried out intensive research with regard to the compatibility of the consolidation options with EU state aid law.
PwC Legal (Cologne):
The Legal Corporate/M&A team around director Dr. Roland Hens provided advice on questions of corporate and trade law and supported the City of Wuppertal in tax-related implementation.
PwC Legal (Düsseldorf):
Together with senior manager Dr. Christoph Anger, the team led by partner Dr. Sven Joachim Otto provided advice on communal, budgetary and public procurement law with regard to the possible consolidation options.
PwC Advisory (Frankfurt):
The Infrastructure Advisory team headed by the partner Hansjörg Arnold, together with the senior managers Dr. Georg Teichmann and Johannes Single, provided the legal team in Hamburg with significant support for advice on state aid law through business analyses of the consolidation measures.
PwC Advisory (Düsseldorf):
The Business Recovery Services team around the partner Patrick Ziechmann, together with senior manager Jan Lindenberg, advised the city with regard to the profitability of a variety of possible consolidation options, following which it was responsible for project and process management for the implementation of the restructuring measures, including raising a bridging loan, and the preparation of a restructuring report.
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