User:*JoP191*/Abdallah Chatila

Abdallah Chatila, is a Swiss businessman, entrepreneur and investor originally from Lebanon. He is president and founder of m3 GROUPE based in Geneva, a company operating in the real estate, hospitality, catering, health and services sectors. An astute philanthropist and founder of the Sesam Foundation, he actively participates in the development of Geneva through his philanthropic activities and the diversification of his group. According to Bilan magazine, he is one of the 300 wealthiest people in Switzerland. In France, he has been a co-shareholder of Toupargel (Agihold group) since January 2020.

Background and family
Abdallah Chatila was born on 16 July 1974 in Beirut, Lebanon. He is the son of the late Genevan jeweller Elie Chatila. The Chatila family fled the Lebanese civil war in 1976 and, after living in Italy and France, settled in Switzerland in 1988.

Abdallah studied at the International School of Geneva and then at the Los Angeles Institute of Gemology, from which he graduated in 1993.

Abdallah Chatila lives in Geneva and is married with three children.

Asset management and family office
Abdallah Chatila started his professional career in New York before joining the family jewellery business in Geneva in 1995. In 2006, he left the family business to begin his activities as a real estate developer,.

In 2007, in order to support his various investment activities, he founded Rachaya Holding, a family office operating in the fields of real estate, diamonds and contemporary art. In 2008, he created The Diamond Fund Ltd, the first diamond fund.

In 2008–2009, he made venture capital investments in young innovative companies in the health, technology and insurance sectors (Primassure). He became one of the main shareholders of Spacecode, an RFID systems provider and integrator, and also invested in several companies, such as Hestia Construction, Defferrard & Lanz, and Planella, which he later sold.

Real Estate
In 2011, Abdallah Chatila acquired a stake in the Geneva-based real estate company CGi IMMOBILIER and became its sole shareholder in August 2015,. He later renamed it m3 REAL ESTATE.

m3 GROUPE

In 2019, Mr Chatila created m3 GROUPE, which he manages. The group’s activities are spread across real estate, hotels, restaurants, health and services.

In 2020, Mr Chatila acquired the Swiss companies Katana and GPA Guardian Protection, , , , with a total of 600 employees and 60 million Swiss francs in turnover, in order to integrate them into m3 GROUPE’s Services division.

In August 2020, via m3 GROUPE, he announced an investment of two million Swiss francs in the Lausanne-based start-up Technis, winner of 17 innovation awards and known for its management of people flows with connected flooring solutions, ,.

In 2020, Mr Chatila’s group had a turnover of more than 250 million Swiss francs and in 2021 it had more than 1,600 employees. .

Large-scale real estate projects

House of Missions

In 2019, Abdallah Chatila launched “House of Missions”, a new architectural project in the Nations neighbourhood in Petit-Saconnex (Geneva) designed for diplomatic missions and international organisations. The project has been operational since December 2020.

Esplanade 3

In 2020, Mr Chatila finalised the Esplanade 3 project in the Pont-Rouge district, Geneva’s future nerve centre, with more than 30,000 m2 of rental space to be built on what used to be the SBB Cargo Tower. The complex consists of a shared foundation and two emblematic towers of 13 and 15 floors, respectively, that offer an unobstructed view of the Geneva area. The project was sold in its entirety to the State of Geneva’s pension fund,.

stellar 32

In 2020, the stellar 32 project was built in Plan-les-Ouates (Geneva). This 36,000 m2 building houses start-ups, multinationals and a hotel complex.

Hospitality
In 2017, Abdallah Chatila founded m3 HOSPITALITY, which brings together all of his group’s hotel activities. Its first hotel opened in the spring of 2019 in Ferney-Voltaire, near Geneva International Airport.

Catering and gastronomy
Since 2019, Abdallah Chatila has actively invested in Geneva’s restaurant business (with an advertised estimated budget of 100 million Swiss francs). His m3 RESTAURANTS division aims at making Geneva a gastronomic destination.

ÀHis company has so far taken over several Geneva institutions: Le Vallon and Le Cheval Blanc in Vandœuvres; the Auberge du Lion d’Or; the Traiteur de Châtelaine, lethe Traiteur Magne; the restaurant of the Geneva Tennis Club , and The Hamburger Foundation (three establishments in Geneva). It has also created several establishments such as HOME, Live, the Lion d’Or tea room and Gaku.

Production of masks
In April 2020, as part of the fight against COVID-19, Abdallah Chatila created m3 SANITRADE, a specialised healthcare division within his group, and imported 140 million masks for use by the authorities, the medical profession, companies and individuals based in Geneva, , ,.

In June 2020, he bought a former factory in Ploufragan, Brittany, to rev up European mask production.

In June 2021, he opened a new factory in Geneva with two production lines for 35 million masks per year. The inauguration took place in June 2021, in the presence of the cantonal authorities and the State Councillor in charge of health.

Between French and Swiss production, Mr Chatila forecast a total cumulative production target of 285 million masks.

Screening and vaccination centres
In response to the second wave of COVID-19, m3 GROUPE’s health division opened the first screening centre in Geneva in November 2020, to be followed by another centre (at Geneva airport) and several mobile screening units,.

In addition, in partnership with several health stakeholders, Abdallah Chatila created and financed two vaccination centres, including one at Palexpo which will become one of the largest centres in Europe. Mr Chatila thus became one of the most active players in the fight against the pandemic in Geneva.

Sesam Foundation
In 2011, Abdallah Chatila created the Sesam Foundation with the aim of organising and developing his philanthropic activities. The foundation commits approximately 1.5 million Swiss francs per year to support associations and projects with a social vocation in Geneva and the Middle East. The foundation creates valuable partnerships with organisations that help marginalised people. It collaborates very regularly with other donor foundations as well as with the public sector.

Durabilité
Abdallah Chatila’s group has for several years been helping many players in the canton that are active in the social sphere. In 2021, it was decided that each entity of m3 GROUPE would establish a solidarity partnership with local charities such as Partage, Au Cœur des Grottes, the Geneva Red Cross, and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

Cultural and sports sponsorship
Through his group, Abdallah Chatila actively supports a number of projects and institutions aimed at improving Geneva’s cultural life, such as the Orchestre de Suisse Romande (OSR), artGenève, the Comédie de Genève and the Théâtre de Carouge.

Mr Chatila also supports various local sports teams that make Geneva famous, as well as popular events that contribute to strengthening the canton’s reputation, such as the Servette Football Club (SFC), the Genève-Servette Hockey Club (GSHC), the Gonet Geneva Open and the Course de l’Escalade.

Patronage of the arts
As an art lover and collector, Abdallah Chatila founded m3 COLLECTION, a corporate collection that also promotes contemporary Swiss artists such as Valentin Carron, David Hominal, Natacha Donzé and Caroline Tschumi,.

Social patronage
Thanks to its various partnerships, Abdallah Chatila’s group contributes to strengthening the local economic fabric and the influence of the canton within international Geneva by supporting, in particular, the Geneva Chamber of Commerce, the Fondation pour Genève and the International Geneva Welcome Centre.

The Diamond Niche
In 2006, Abdallah Chatila published The Diamond Niche, a reference work on the many facets of diamonds around the world published by The Diamond Fund Ltd (1 January 2006).

m3 MAGAZINE
In 2016, Abdallah Chatila created the real estate magazine FLAT MAGAZINE, now renamed m3 MAGAZINE, which aims to provide all Genevans with clear and detailed information on the news, the future and the influence of their city, and also to talk about the players and institutions that are important for Geneva. With a print run of 15,000 copies and available at newsstands in Geneva, this magazine is published three times a year.

The COVID-19 crisis
In April 2020, Abdallah Chatila financed the acquisition of a machine worth 110,000 Swiss francs on behalf of Geneva University Hospitals to speed up the detection of the disease.

In April 2020, Abdallah Chatila financed the acquisition of a machine worth 110,000 Swiss francs on behalf of Geneva University Hospitals to speed up the detection of the disease.

Beirut
Following the explosions of 4 August 2020 in Beirut, Mr Chatila donated one million dollars and launched an appeal for donations via the emergency-beirut.ch platform. Through his Sesam Foundation, 500,000 Swiss francs were released over a period of one year to local charities. At the same time, his company donated one million protective masks to the Lebanese Red Cross.

Commitment against anti-Semitism
On 20 November 2019, Abdallah Chatila personally purchased items that belonged to Adolf Hitler (including a top hat and an expensive edition of Mein Kampf) at an auction of Third Reich items in Germany. To prevent them from being used for propaganda purposes, Mr Chatila offered them to the Jewish foundation Keren Hayesod, which decided to hand them over to Yad Vashem, the Shoah memorial in Jerusalem.

On 20 January 2020, Mr Chatila received the King David Award in Auschwitz as part of the commemoration of the anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp in January 1945.

Honours

 * King David award.
 * m3 SANITRADE, the health division of Abdallah Chatila’s group, won the Swiss Development Award towards France at the 32nd edition of the France-Switzerland Trade Awards.