Bien Commun

3 co-founders, 8 employees and trainees, 2 board members, 45 associates

Magali Pascal, Fabien Zufferey and Clara Allgaier co-founded SCIC Bien Commun en 2022, to provide operational solutions to a systemic problem: the devitalization of small towns and villages and the alarming, sometimes dangerous, deterioration of the real estate stock in these areas. With a wide range of educational backgrounds, the team boasts a multitude of skills in setting up complex real estate operations. These include financial, legal, architectural, technical, project management, leadership and community involvement skills. The team is also experienced in cooperative life: in addition to its choice to set up as a Social Cooperative of Collective Interest (SCIC), it has developed alongside the SCOP Ecozimut - a fluid, thermal and environmental design office - which has invested in Bien Commun to develop a project management tool to facilitate innovation in the renovation of old buildings.

Magali Pascal

Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer

Fabien Zufferey

Co-founder and President

Clara Allgaier

Co-founder and Operations Manager

Marion Chauveau

Project Architect

Suzelle Meyer

Engineering Operations Manager

Agnès Bonnet

Administrative and Financial Manager

Villages in Occitania have been suffering from depopulation since deindustrialization, leading to a downward spiral of decline in these areas. The town center housing stock initially began deteriorating due to the departure of financially stable households to the suburbs (single-family homes), resulting in the development of peripheral commercial zones. Historic buildings have fallen into disrepair due to lack of investment and expertise. Concurrently, vacancy rates for housing have increased and businesses have closed. As a result, town centers have degraded, losing autonomy and attractiveness. On average, 2 out of 10 buildings are vacant in these areas. Rehabilitation projects have become prohibitively expensive, further dissuading household purchases. Moreover, these regions lack real estate operators to support building renovations. It is to address all these issues that the co-founders chose to create Bien Commun.

Bien Commun's mission is to help revitalize small towns and villages by renovating buildings to create new living spaces. Bien Commun responds to this under-addressed issue, specializing in property renovation with expertise across the entire value chain. Its aim is to turn these areas into models of social innovation, real estate and ecological transition. To achieve this, Bien Commun, through its real estate consultancy and property management business, seeks to rehabilitate and restructure old housing stock, reopen shops in town centers, and offer quality, affordable housing, all to promote economic development, reduce vacancy rates, recreate social links and make rural areas more attractive. The real estate consultancy assists local authorities in setting up complex real estate projects, thanks to the complementary expertise of its team (programming, legal, financial, technical, etc.). As for the real estate company, it positions itself on a property and implements the rehabilitation project by proposing a comprehensive, personalized solution. To date, 15 real estate projects and 22 community projects have been supported, creating around a hundred housing units, four alternative and inclusive habitats, and some twenty shops and services.

Bien Commun is a hybrid between a real estate consultancy and a socially responsible real estate company. The design office meets an immediate need while ensuring the group's economic profitability. As well as being the economic driving force, it strengthens human capital through the acquisition of multi-scale know-how and practical knowledge of the target territories. In the long term, the design office will remain the Group's nurturing entity, providing stable income and pre-financing land operations. Some 15 studies have been completed by 2023, at an average cost of €15,000 per study. With positive operating income as early as 2023, Bien Commun will easily break even, at €6,347 by the end of 2023. From a strategic point of view, the real estate company provides the Group with operational leverage, enabling it to control the entire value chain of its operations. As a land holding company, its business model is based on rental income from acquired and renovated properties. The company benefits from particularly low purchase costs, due to its location in rural areas. It carries out major renovation work, partly financed by public subsidies. Bien Commun's strategy is therefore to use the engineering and design department to identify projects, then approach the real estate company to complete them.

Bien Commun's positioning responds to both social and environmental challenges:

- Revitalizing rural areas: Enhancing the attractiveness of rural areas by stimulating renovation and the establishment of new shops and services.

- Affordable housing and businesses: Affordable housing and premises with high energy and environmental performance, to combat fuel poverty.

- Reducing the impact of buildings on the environment: ecologically-friendly renovation of vacant buildings using natural materials from local sources and a low-tech approach.