land Market News: Spanish Real Estate Intelligence

16 January 2019 - Eje Prime

Urbas Grupo Financiero saw its share price skyrocket on the stock market after appointing its new President. The company closed the day with gains of more than 44% on the main stock market, its largest daily increase since March 2016. The rise coincided with the arrival of Juan Antonio Acedo Fernández as the head of the company.

Specifically, the share price of Urbas skyrocketed by 44.18% on Wednesday to €0.0062, after opening the day at €0.043 per share. That boost took the company to levels not seen since October last year, according to reports from Europa Press.

A road engineer by background, the new President of Urbas has more than 25 years of experience in the real estate, construction and energy sectors, “where he has held several positions of maximum responsibility”, highlighted the company in a statement sent today to Spain’s National Securities Market Commission (CNMV).

At the end of the ninth month of 2018, Urbas owned a land portfolio spanning 18 million m2, spread over the regions of Aragón, Andalucía, Madrid, Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León, Murcia and Valencia. Currently, the company’s assets are valued at €34.8 million.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

14 January 2019 - Eje Prime

Aquila Capital is stepping up a gear in Spain. The German fund manager, through its property developer AQ Acentor, is going to invest €200 million in two residential developments in the province of Barcelona. The company has closed two land purchases, one in Viladecans and the other in Zona Franca, where it is going to construct 1,100 homes, according to Sven Schoel, manager of the company, speaking to Eje Prime.

In Viladecans, the property developer has acquired a plot of land spanning 500,000 m2 of free and protected land on which it is going to build 500 homes. On the other hand, in the Zona Franca, right next to Barcelona Fira District, the company has acquired a plot measuring 70,000 m2 of free and protected land for the construction of 600 homes.

“For us, Spain is a fundamental market at the moment and for that reason, we are looking for more land, above all in Barcelona, Madrid, Sevilla and Bilbao”, explained the executive, who added that during the course of 2019, the company expects to close more than one operation in those cities.

Following the latest two acquisitions, AQ Acentor currently has 5,000 homes under development, distributed over seven projects: three in the province of Barcelona (in Sant Adrià del Besòs, Sant Cugat del Vallès, Zona Franca, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat and Viladecans), two in Madrid (in the neighbourhoods of Lla Moraleja and La Ciudad de los Ángeles), two in Málaga (one in Rincón de la Victoria and another one in Estepona), and a final one in Valencia.

In Valencia, the company is working on the development of a residential and tertiary use complex, where it has made an investment of more than €350 million. That is the project through which the company debuted in Spain, in September 2018. It will house a total of 1,800 homes on a plot spanning 130,000 m2 (…).

On the other hand, the group also still has its sights set on Portugal, the country that Aquila Capital has entered through investments in the renewable energy sector. “We have identified two operations in the Lisbon residential market that we hope to close during the course of this year”, said the director.

AQ Acentor is financed by Aquila Capital, which is also present in the German residential market and has a portfolio of assets worth €7 billion. The fund manager’s commitment to the property developer is long term. In fact, the manager of the company denies any plans to debut on the stock market soon. “We have been in Spain for almost five years and we have no intention of divesting”, concluded Schoel.

Original story: Eje Prime (by Berta Seijo)

Translation: Carmel Drake