• Transaction / Assets
    Mercado de San Miguel
  • Seller
    Consortium led by Montserrat Valle Hernández
  • Buyer
    Dutch fund
  • € MM
    70

Dutch Fund Acquires ‘Mercado de San Miguel’ For Record Price

28 July 2017 – El Confidencial

The Mercado de San Miguel has a new owner. A Dutch fund specialising in the real estate sector has just taken ownership of this historical and iconic building in Madrid. And it has done so for €70 million, a figure that, in absolute terms is not by any means one of the largest in the market, but which, nevertheless, represents the most expensive transaction per square metre that has ever been closed in the Spanish real estate market.

According to sources consulted by El Confidencial, for every one of its 1,200 m2, the buyer has paid €60,000, an amount that breaks all real estate records and which represents, for the founders and promoters of the project, several times their original investment.

The person that has led this project from the beginning is Montserrat Valle Hernández, the majority shareholder of the company that used to own the market, El Gastródomo de San Miguel. She was the architect behind the renovation of this iconic building, which last year marked its first century of life.

Sources consulted explain that prominent shareholders also included bankers such as Pedro Guerrero Guerrero (President of Bankinter), Salvador García Atance Lafuente (former President of Morgan Stanley in Spain), Paul Gomero Vaquero (Private Banking Partner at A&G), as well as the well-known journalist Guillermo Fesser and the businessmen Víctor Josue Alarcón, Pedro Gómez Blazquez and Juan Ramón Ramírez Lozano.

Aguirre Newman participated in the operation, which was signed on Thursday at a notary’s office on Calle Serrano in Madrid. Aguirre Newman led the sales process and studied the various offers that were received from domestic and overseas groups, to bring this deal to a successful conclusion. Sources at the consultancy firm declined to comment on the transaction.

A centenary building

The unique Mercado de San Miguel, located in the square of the same name, next to Plaza Mayor, was acquired more than a decade ago by a group of companies led by Monserrat Valle with the aim of restoring it and turning it into a gastronomic centre.

On 13 May 2009, it reopened its doors, restoring the splendour that it enjoyed in its heydey. The building was constructed between 1913 and 1916 and was designed by the architect Alfonso Dubé y Díez. Nowadays, it still retains its original iron structure dating back to the beginning of the 20th century, which stands out as one of its greatest features (…).

Original story: El Confidencial (by E. Sanz)

Translation: Carmel Drake