Solidere
Solidere s.a.l. is a Lebanese joint-stock company in charge of planning and redeveloping Beirut’s Centre Ville (Beirut Central District) following the conclusion, in 1990, of the country’s devastating civil war. By agreement with the government, Solidere enjoys special powers of eminent domain as well as a limited regulatory authority codified in law, making the company a unique form of public-private partnership.
Solidere was founded on May 5, 1994 by then-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who had made a priority of promoting Lebanon’s reconstruction and return to normalcy. The name “Solidere” stands for Société libanaise pour le développement et la reconstruction de Beyrouth, French for “The Lebanese Company for the Development and Reconstruction of Beirut.”
Projects
Solidere is widely credited as the most important force behind Beirut’s reemergence, in recent years, as a bustling urban destination with a chance to earn back its ancient title of “Paris of the Middle East.” Besides directly engaging in development of infrastructure, new construction, rehabilitation of war-torn structures, and urban landscaping, Solidere has worked to attract global retailers such as Virgin Megastores to Beirut Central District. The company’s most significant single project to date has been The Souks, a 100,000 m2 retail center that was originally scheduled (before the Israel-Lebanon crisis) to open by year’s end 2006. Other ongoing developments include the Hadiqat As-Samah (Garden of Forgiveness) and the Marina Towers luxury residential complex.
Most, if not all, Solidere projects are located in Beirut Central District, well away from the areas suffering the greatest devastation as a result of Israeli airstrikes in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. As such, the greatest physical damage to Solidere so far has been the sudden loss of the developmental infrastructure Lebanon had built in the fifteen years since the end of the civil war. This will likely take some time to rebuild, as will investor confidence in Lebanon’s future (and by extension that of Solidere).
Financials
Solidere’s shares are listed on the Beirut and Kuwait Stock Exchange, and its Global Depository Receipts trade on the London, Frankfurt and Luxembourg Stock Exchanges. Its share price on the Beirut exchange has risen sharply in recent years, from about US$5 in early 2004 to a high of US$26 in February 2006. [1] In June 2006, the month before Israel began lobbing bombs at Beirut (see 2006 Israel-Lebanon crisis), Solidere approved a US$100M dividends payout to its shareholders. (The information in this paragraph is current as of July 29, 2006.)
Most of Solidere’s investors are European and North American investment firms or Arab investors from the Gulf. Rafik Hariri himself owned a majority stake in Solidere before his assassination in 2005, and the Hariri family continues to be a principal shareholder. [2].
On hold
As of July 12, 2006, all Solidere projects are on hold due to the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict.[citation needed]
The Beirut Stock Exchange reopened on August 1 after a two-week closure for security reasons. For the time being, the exchange has implemented certain restrictions on trading to limit volatility. It has allowed Solidere, exclusively among Lebanese firms, to fluctuate up to 15 percent daily.[1]
External links
- http://www.solidere.com.lb/ – Solidere’s homepage
- http://www.beirutmartyrssquare.com/
- http://www.cggl.org/scripts/new.asp?id=540 – New York Times critic Nicolai Ouroussoff on Lebanese intellectual Elias Khoury’s criticism of Solidere's “soulless” architectural aesthetic
- http://www.lebanon.com/construction/beirut/ – Information about the reconstruction of Beirut Central District