Santander Grants €128M Loan to La Finca for Madrid’s Largest Ever Luxury Development

12 February 2018 – Expansión

A loan from Santander / The group owned by the Cereceda family has obtained financing for the first phase of its project, which will include the construction of 144 homes, a golf course, sports facilities and a leisure centre.

The group owned by the García Cereceda family – owners of the La Finca business and residential complex – has obtained a cash injection of almost €130 million to develop its LGC3 residential project, which will involve the construction of around 500 luxury homes in the municipality of Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid) for a total investment of €340 million.

Specifically, the company has signed a loan with Santander amounting to €127.5 million for the development of the first phase of the project, which will include the construction of 144 homes in three-storey blocks, a golf course, a lake, sports facilities and a shopping and leisure centre, according to financial sources speaking to Expansión.

The first phase of the project, which has been called LGC3 – an acronym that corresponds to the initials of Luis García Cereceda, the patriarch and founder of Procisa (now La Finca) who passed away in 2010 – is already underway and will involve a total investment of between €154 million and €159 million.

Prices

The homes in this first phase will have a surface area of between 200 m2 and 400 m2, approximately, and will have terraces that may extend to 600 m2, as well as private swimming pools for some of the homes. The sales prices of the units will range between €1 million and €2 million.

The LGC project will be carried out on a plot that has a total surface area of 850,000 m2 in Pozuelo de Alarcón, to the north of the capital, next to Parque Empresarial, the exclusive urbanisation were well-known footballers and Spanish businessmen live. Of the total surface area, around 100,000 m2 will be allocated to the plot where the 500 homes will be built. The first phase of the development alone, with 144 units, will occupy around 36,000 m2.

The rest of the surface area – around 750,000 m2 – will be allocated to the Country Club, accessible only to owners of the homes, which will have an 18-hotel golf course, next to a lake with a water surface area of 35,000 m2, an artificial beach, sports facilities and schools, lakes, gardens, a running track and a shopping and leisure centre with a surface area of 10,000 m2.

In addition to the security measures that the urbanisation will have, with a double perimeter fence surrounding the plot and an intrusion detection system and gatehouse, the development will also incorporate the latest requirements in terms of sustainability and energy efficiency (…),.

Property business

La Finca, chaired by Susana García Cereceda, has already started to construct the first phase of homes and has allocated around €25 million from the group’s own cash funds to the urbanisation work. The company carried out a corporate restructuring in 2016 and signed a financing agreement with a syndicated loan led by Société Générale, CaixaBank and Santander amounting to €395 million destined to pay off its existing debt and tackle new projects.

Moreover, last year, the company welcomed the fund Värde into its office property business – La Finca Global Assets – which includes its La Finca, Cardenal Marcelo Spínola and Martínez Villergas business parks.

The company has already initiated the process for La Finca Global Assets (in which Värde owns a 40% stake) to debut as a Socimi on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB) during the course of 2018.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation: Carmel Drake