• Transaction / Assets
    4 assets
  • Seller
    Al Breck
  • Buyer
  • € MM
    3.5

Lennar’s Socimi Al Breck Sells its first 4 Assets for €3.5M

5 January 2018 – Eje Prime

One of the largest real estate companies in the United States of America is doing business in Spain. Lennar Corporation has sold four properties through one of its Spanish Socimis, Al Breck, for €3.49 million, according to a statement issued by the company. The firm has carried out the transaction through the company Rialto Capital Management, an investment vehicle, headquartered in Luxembourg that Lennar uses to carry out real estate operations in Europe and the only one that has a stable structure in Spain.

The company disposed of the properties in December, whereby generating a profit of €1.79 million. The firm, which has a loan linked to the assets, will have to assume a financial cost of approximately €1.2 million in this regard.

Lennar Corporation debuted on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB) with Al Breck at the end of November 2016 (although it began its activity in Spain in December 2014), with a stock of almost 639 rental homes located in the centre of Madrid. The Socimi formed its asset portfolio by purchasing a batch of properties from Segurfondo Inversión in December 2014.

Specifically, the Socimi’s assets are located throughout the centre of the Spanish capital (in the following districts: Centro, Salamanca, Chamberí and Chueca), as well as in La Moreleja and areas close to Alcobendas and Torrejón de Ardoz. It also owns retail premises and offices. According to its IPO brochure, the market value of its asset portfolio amounted to €110.52 million (in November 2016).

The Socimi made its stock market debut with a business plan that seeks to generate value from its portfolio, in other words, by selling all of its homes within a five-year period, which ends in December 2020. The company has now started this divestment process with the sale of these four assets.

Al Breck’s strategy

Specifically, the company’s business plan involves investing in improvements to its homes, “to increase returns and improve their occupancy rates to stable levels, implementing an aggressive rental strategy that includes, where necessary, decreasing rents and making concessions to tenants to improve cash flow conditions”.

Subsequently, according to the group’s IPO brochure, “having improved the occupancy rates, the aim is to keep them stable and initiate a progressive increase in rental prices, to reflect the improvements made to the properties and market rates”.

Finally, the Socimi plans “to optimise the value of the portfolio, selling assets either individually or in batches, when demand and prices so favour it and having completed the minimum ownership period of three years”, according to details provided in the brochure.

At the end of last year, the company also launched a second Socimi, Ceres Real Estate Socimi. Although for the time being, the activity of that entity is very limited (it does not have any assets in its portfolio), the sole administrator of the company is Rialto Capital (…).

Original story: Eje Prime (by C. Pareja)

Translation: Carmel Drake