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Pine Cliffs Group Plans to Invest Another 80 Million Euros in Portugal
7 September 2017
The owners of Pine Cliffs have several new hotel investments in perspective for the regions of Lisbon and Porto. The office in Portugal will also manage projects under study in Spain and Greece.
The UIP Group – United Investments Portugal, owned by the Kuwaiti IFA Hotels & Resorts group, plans to invest another 70 to 80 million euros in Portugal in various tourist and hotel projects in the regions of Lisbon and Porto. UIP’s intentions were revealed by Carlos Leal, the company’s CEO, owner of the benchmark Pine Cliffs project, in an exclusive interview with Jornal Econômico. This amount does not include the €200 million investment planned for the Vale do Freixo project in Loulé, which has been in a legal and bureaucratic impasse for several years.
“For the future, in addition to the Vale do Freixo, we have several developments planned for Lisbon and Porto, for a total of investment that can run from 70 to 80 million euros. Decisions on these investments are expected in October of this year, and their operations are expected to start in the first quarter of 2019,” Carlos Leal told Jornal Econômico.
The UIP CEO added that the group has between 30 and 40 million euros of real estate for sale just in the Greater Lisbon region. “At Pine Cliffs itself, we still have about 15 to 20 million euros in real estate to market between four and five luxury villas, five town houses and four empty lots for construction,” he added.
“Our three main focuses in Portugal are the Algarve, Greater Porto and Greater Lisbon. But we are studying investments in other international destinations in Europe,” Carlos Leal revealed.
The CEO of UIP added that there are “strong possibilities for [a group investment in] Marbella, it is a likely idea and the office in Portugal would lead the investment.”
“Girona, north of Barcelona, is another possibility, as it is served by an airport, and could attract significant amounts of tourists heading to and from the south of France,” said Carlos Leal.
The head of UIP also revealed that, in addition to Spain, the Kuwaiti company is studying other future investments. These could be in Portugal or other European countries, such as Greece.
“We are talking about investments that may result from acquisitions or new developments,” says Carlos Leal.
Since 1999, the year that UIP started its operations in Portugal with the well known Pine Cliffs project in the Algarve, the group has invested 350 million euros in Portugal, according to Carlos Leal’s tally. This figure will have been in the region of 110 million euros just in the years 2015 and 2016. The only problem the company has is the impasse surrounding the Vale do Freixo project in Loulé, which is still held up by national public administration authorities.
“We started this investment in 2000/2001. We have already invested around 15 million euros in the venture. It was qualified as a PIN + [Project of National Interest] project, for being in an NDE – Economic Development Nucleus, type 3 [involving the tourism sector], and received all of the approvals required by law,” Leal stated. However, the project has not received the go ahead from the government, which claims that the development will be too dense for the area in question, which is the Alte basin in the Caldeirão mountain range.
According to Carlos Leal, the Vale do Freixo project’s plan is to build a boutique hotel, with a church and a square. “The idea is to create a village. There is also a golf course designed by Garry Player [famous golfer]. The concept is to transform this project into a destination spa, with a component focused on nature, including hiking trails and honey production, the production of organic olive oil and plantations of carob trees, fig trees and other fruit trees, on a total of 400 hectares,” the CEO explained. In matters related to nature and the environment, Carlos Leal emphasised that UIP has developed a protocol with the University of the Algarve. The protocol would study and monitor the behaviour of lynxes that commonly cross that region. Another agreement with the Portuguese Golf Federation would preserve prehistoric paintings found on a rock in the area, the Rocha Pena. ”
“The estate component of Vale do Freixo, consisting of villas, town houses and apartments, would amount to a total of 1,800 beds. But the project has been stalled because of complaints regarding the project’s density. As a comparison, the Pine Cliffs resort has a total of three thousand beds, spread out over an area of 70 hectares,” Carlos Leal added. UIP has already requested a new hearing from the Ministry of the Environment to resolve this impasse, and the group is waiting for a response.
Original Story: O Jornal Econômico – Nuno Miguel Silva
Translation: Richard Turner