The French business school TBS grows in Barcelona

Twenty-five years after landing in Barcelona, ​​the Toulouse Business School redoubles its commitment to the city with the opening of a new campus in the 22@ district.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
23 November 2022 Wednesday 18:36
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The French business school TBS grows in Barcelona

Twenty-five years after landing in Barcelona, ​​the Toulouse Business School redoubles its commitment to the city with the opening of a new campus in the 22@ district.

The seven-story building has a façade lined with a vertical garden, a large terrace, a main hall, an amphitheatre, innovation zones and, of course, several classrooms prepared to train up to 1,100 business administration and management students.

The business school – owned by the French State through the French Chamber of Commerce – has leased the property to Perial Asset Management, a French investment fund that in 2020 bought the building for a price of 30 million from the promoter Hines. It was that American real estate agency that was in charge of building this university campus (in addition to other buildings in the Diagonal Mar area). Now, TBS has reached an agreement with Perial to lease the building for the next 25 years.

“Our commitment to Barcelona is long-term, we feel closely linked to the city and its business fabric. We bring our talent closer to SMEs, subsidiaries of multinationals and startups in the digital ecosystem”, Olivier Benielli, director of the Barcelona campus, celebrated yesterday.

TBS landed in the Catalan capital in 1997 under the name of ESEC. It grew over time with the opening of various campuses in the center but they remained small and finally this summer, it moved its activity to the 22@ building, which today houses 675 students.

Barcelona is an attractive city for TBS as it has the capacity to attract international students. "We have representation of 45 nationalities, mainly European, Latin American and North American." Spanish and French students are a minority, barely adding up to 30% of the total in university degrees. In fact, in the facilities of the new campus there is no trace of French. All bachelor's and master's degrees are taught in English. “After all, it is the language that dominates the business world,” Benielli acknowledged. In addition, the Barcelona campus is the most international when compared to the student body of the Toulouse, Paris and Casablanca centers.

Despite being a public entity, TBS provides private training under the approval of the French educational system. Altogether, the group invoices 63 million euros and obtains around two million profits. Everyone is reinvested in the growth of the project, which is expected to land in the United States soon.