Servihabitat Makes Profit Of €82M In First Year With TPG

19 May 2015 – Expansión

Manages assets worth €60,000 million / The platform owned by TPG and CaixaBank is starting to selling homes from Sareb (which the bad bank inherited from Abanca) and wants to be an active player in M&A activity in the sector.

Servihabitat has closed its first year as an independent entity of CaixaBank with a positive balance and the aim of leading the M&A activity in the real estate platform sector in Spain. The property management firm – which is jointly owned by TPG (51%) and the Catalan group (49%) generated revenues of €212 million in 2014 and an EBITDA of €82 million.

The CEO, Julián Cabanillas, explained that these figures are “considerably higher” – by 25% in the case of revenues – than last year but are not comparable, since Servihabitat was incorporated as a radically new company in 2014. It went from being the owner and manager of real estate assets – foreclosed assets and loans from CaixaBank – to being only the manager of the assets.

Cabanillas highlights that the entry of TPG into the platform’s share capital “opened us up to the market and allowed us to have multiple clients”. In fact, during the last year, Servihabitat has reduced its dependency on its second shareholder to 60% of its assets under management, primarily thanks to the contract awarded by Sareb.

The platform was one of four that won portfolios – together with Haya Real Estate, Altamira and Solvia – for the management of assets from Sareb. This year, Servihabitat has been responsible for managing properties and loans from Abanca – formerly NCG -, Liberbank and Banco de Valencia.

It already administered Banco de Valencia’s assets following the acquisition of the former subsidiary of Bankia. The platform is in the process of migrating the rest of the properties and loans, and in fact, it started to sell homes from the former NCG two weeks ago. The remainder of the real estate loans from the Galician savings banks will be in its system by the summer, and the homes and loans that Liberbank transferred to Sareb, by the end of the year. According to Cabanillas, the transfer of the assets from Sareb is happening in an “ideal” way. “We have a lot of experience in this kind of process” adds the CEO.

Including these assets under transfer, Servihabitat now manages almost 200,000 homes and real estate loans, whose gross book value amounts to almost €60,000 million.

Together with the assets from CaixaBank and Sareb, Servihabitat has also started to administer homes and loans from funds, such as Elliott and from family offices.

Lines of business

To continue growing as an independent platform, Cabanillas is evaluating new lines of business, such as asset management (the construction of large buildings, commercial and hotel developments). Currently, Servihabitat is active in the following areas: the management of homes and loans; advising investors; rental; and the development and management of land.

Another one of the axis of the platform’s strategic plan is the possibility of forming part of the consolidation that the sector is expected to undergo over the next few months, which companies such as Altamira, Haya Real Estate, Aktua and Anticipa, amongst others, will participate in. Cabanillas does not rule out making any purchases to gain “efficiency” but he doesn’t expect that any transactions will be closed until 2016.

Original story: Expansión (by J. Zuloaga)

Translation: Carmel Drake