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Emesa Plans to Invest €100M in New RE Projects Between Now & 2023

13 April 2018 – Eje Prime

Emesa Corporación, the investment company owned by Emilio Cuatrecasas, is committed to the real estate business. The group is going to invest more than €100 million in Barcelona and the surrounding area to launch new projects in the residential, office building and hotel sectors, according to explanations provided by Ferran Forrellad (pictured below), CEO of Emesa, speaking to EjePrime in an interview.

Launched in 1980, Emesa Corporación has been turning its activity, step by step, into a business model in which it can operate comfortably. “The turning point came in 2015 when we went from being a company that bought, managed and operated, into being a company that develops and creates business”, explains Forrellad. “We want to be a player in the real estate sector that controls its projects from the beginning until the end”, he adds.

Emesa, which in addition to its real estate arm also has a business area destined to acquiring stakes in the share capital of companies in full growth (such as the case of the company specialising in storerooms Boxinfiniti), threw itself wholeheartedly into property development with a building in the 22@ district of Barcelona, which is now the headquarters of the law firm Cuatrecasas.

The group, which has multiplied its workforce by three-fold over the last three years, from seven employees to twenty-one, is now in the preliminary phase of constructing a new office building in the 22@ district, at number 184 Calle Pallars. Designed by the architecture firm BAAS, Emesa is going to invest €25 million in the new asset, which will have an above-ground surface area of 9,200 m2, as well as 5,000 m2 below ground. “It will be finished during the third quarter of 2020”, says Forrellad.

“We want to create unique buildings in Barcelona and we are on the lookout for new plots in 22@ on which to build more offices since we firmly believe that it is one of the areas of the future in the city, both for business and homes”, said the company’s CEO.

In recent months, the company has starred in several high profile operations in the Barcelona real estate market, such as the purchase of the Diagonal 444 building, the former headquarters of Cuatrecasas; and the Diagonal 632 building, which houses the headquarters of Quirónsalud Barcelona’s Ophthalmological Institute.

And from one side of La Diagonal to the other. As Eje Prime revealed, Emesa acquired 37,000 m2 of land in Finestrellas, a new development area, which is going to include offices, residential properties and a commercial area. The project in which Emesa is participating constitutes a 90,000 m2 office development, in which it has invested €80 million and which is hopes will be fully operational by 2023 (construction work begins in 2020).

Emesa will also focus on the residential business over the next few years. The company is going to build a development comprising forty homes for rent in Badalona after investing €12 million in this project. According to the forecasts of Emesa, which is on the verge of receiving approval for its licences, the project will be launched in 2020 and has been designed by the architecture firm Barozzi Veira (…).

Last year, the company also purchased the Ullastret Palace in Girona, with the aim of turning it into a high-end hotel, which is going to be the first of a chain of select hotels in El Empordà. (…).

Currently, the portfolio owned by Emesa Corporación spans more than 180,000 m2 and is worth more than €750 million. Emesa Corporación Empresarial generated turnover of €8.07 million last year.

Original story: Eje Prime (by C. Pareja)

Translation: Carmel Drake