Compose group

Who owns Compose group?

Compose group is currently owned by JCDecaux Holding through JCDecaux Holding (2000 vintage), since 2022.

Hand-verified · updated 2026-04-21

About Compose group

Compose is a Nantes-based coliving operator that develops and runs shared residential buildings offering furnished, equipped studios combined with communal kitchens, lounges, gardens and guest rooms, plus bundled services such as cleaning, laundry, high-speed internet and car and bike sharing. Marketed under the Habitations Compose brand, the group positions itself in the French managed shared-housing segment, targeting students and working professionals in situations of mobility or personal and professional transition. It emphasises affordable, human-scale living spaces and community building as an answer to urban isolation and housing accessibility. According to its own disclosures, the platform now operates more than 30 residences across seven French cities, including Nantes, Lyon, Clermont-Ferrand, Rungis in the Ile-de-France, Angers, Bordeaux and La Roche-sur-Yon.

Ownership journey

Compose was founded in 2016 in Nantes by Guillaume Robert-Legrand, operating under the Coliving Factory structure, to build and manage a new form of shared urban housing. In September 2022 the group announced a strategic alliance under which JCDecaux Holding, the investment company of the Decaux family, took a majority stake, with the transaction completed in early October 2022. At the time of the investment the company was running four residences and had a pipeline of around twenty further residences, representing roughly 1,200 units across more than twenty French metropolitan areas, supported by a team of about 25 people. JCDecaux Holding remains an active shareholder and no exit or secondary transaction has been recorded.

Under PE ownership

The 2022 investment was framed as a way to accelerate the roll-out and diversification of Compose's coliving portfolio, giving the founder greater confidence to execute the development plan. Since JCDecaux Holding came in, the operating base has expanded from four residences at the time of the deal to more than 30 in operation, spread across seven French cities, with further openings announced in Paris and Poissy. The group has continued to advance its development pipeline of roughly twenty residences and about 1,200 units targeted across more than twenty agglomerations. The partnership positioned coliving within a larger real-estate strategy aimed at affordable, community-oriented housing, and Compose has kept scaling both its footprint and its resident services under the new ownership.