Icona’s 40% acquisition of Stoneweg stakes creates a combined platform of €8 billion
London-based alternative investment group Icona Capital has entered a landmark partnership with Stoneweg, one of Europe’s leading real investment companies.
Icona manages a wide variety of investment projects across diverse asset classes–real estate, credit, private equity, case-by-case special situations. Even before the Stoneweg alliance the ground-breaking and successful investment business oversaw over €3 billion in assets.
Founder and CEO Max-Hervé George’s decision to acquire a 40% stake in Stoneweg’s capital indubitably fortifies Icona’s rapidly advancing influence in the international real estate sector. This collaboration will, for example, kickstart Icona’s large-scale ESG-pipeline, which incorporates prime real estate investments in critically dislocated markets.
According to Max-Hervé George however, the transaction is beneficial for both parties. The €8 billion platform created by the formal partnership capitalises on, and positively impacts both partners’ business strategy, deal sourcing, and asset distribution capabilities. In a recent interview, Max-Hervé George highlights how Stoneweg and Icona’s blended vision, entrepreneurial creativity, synergy and resources offers both companies new “growth potential”. He refers to a previous project during which the two companies identified and developed industrial land in Spain and says that modelling their shared future on the foundation of their former successes is the next organic step.
Indeed, this collaboration, does similarly enhance Stoneweg’s growth trajectory as a leading global real estate player. This milestone bolsters Stoneweg’s 2022 commitment to continually offer investors creative investment solutions, and follows the revitalization of both the management and board of directors. Stoneweg founder and CEO, Jaume Sabater, echoed Max-Hervé George in celebrating the partnership. According to Sabater, Icona’s decision is a show of trust in Stoneweg’s investment business. He adds that he too, is excited by the prospect of using this new collaboration in client delivery work.
Both companies have established a precedent in original cases and out-of-the-box handling. Since 2015, Stoneweg has identified unique real-estate and investment opportunities all over Europe as well as in the United States. Its successes have brought a colossal €5 billion of assets, managed by a team of 140 expert professionals.
And Icona’s astonishing rise is certainly not unexpected. Max-Hervé George has a reputation for innovative successful entrepreneurial schemes that sowed the seeds for what his group has accomplished today. In 2012, the then-22-year-old entrepreneur acquired the only remaining buildable land in the famous resort of Gstaad in the Bernese Alps, and turned it into an ultimate-luxury resort under the banner of the Ultima Group. The company created an extraordinary hospitality experience, revitalising the hotelier theory. Ultima’s resultant asset expansion was nothing short of volcanic, and the company had an over-billion asset portfolio by 2019. That year, Max-Hervé George was recognized as one of 30 most noteworthy young entrepreneurs in France–his name was listed in Forbes’s 2019 ‘30 Under 30’ entrepreneur list. Concurrently, the Ultima CEO decided to expand his management to an alternative venture, and hence, Icona was born the same year.
Both companies are feverishly excited by the prospect of shared projects in 2023.
