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Solvia Will Create A Network Of 35 Real Estate Agencies

15 February 2016 – Expansion

Banco Sabadell property sold properties for 1.657 million in 2015, year in which it made a 24 million profit.


Solvia just closed the most important financial year since becoming the real estate subsidiary of Banco Sabadell. After integrating in record time the management of an asset portfolio from SAREB for a gross value of EUR 13,000 million, the company has doubled in size and rocketed both its income and benefits for its staff. Thus, assets under management have grown from EUR 15,000 million to 28,000 million, with a total of 140,000 sites operated throughout Spain, of which 66,400 assets are homes. 
The server is now preparing to take a new step in its growth strategy: to launch this year a network of real estate agents in order to capture private home sales market. This means that the company will now market homes that neither belong to the bank or to SAREB nor to promoters to which Sabadell has financed. 
The first Solvia street real estate office has just opened in Alicante as a pilot. However, the intention of the company is to extend the initiative and open 35 more agencies throughout 2016, as Javier Garcia del Rio – director general of the servicer, explains 
The plan of the real estate company is that its chain of agencies focus, in the first phase in Valencia, Catalonia, Balearic Islands, Andalusia and Madrid, the most populated areas and where Solvia has more business experience. “The goal of the agencies network of is not to sell homes already existing in our portfolio, but accessing the individual market, which is much larger and the fastest growing” he says.

Results

In total, the volume of sales mediated by Solvia in 2015 amounted to EUR 1.657 billion, exceeding by 20% the initial budget, which corresponds to the end customer´s sale price. This figure is 43% higher than that of 2014; but excluding SAREB portfolios – which did not compute through all the year, the increase was 17%. If transactions are calculated based on the gross value, sales totaled EUR 2,954 million. The goal for this year is to sell properties for 2,000 million in terms of the final sales price. 
Thanks to the commissions generated by these transactions and fees in management concept Solvia charges its customers and asset owners -Sabadell, SAREB and some international investment fund which has assigned to them their portfolios in Spain, the company invoiced 121 million in 2015. Earnings before taxes (EBT) reached 24 million- a 117% increase over the budget-, making Solvia a profitable subsidiary of Sabadell. The goal is a benefit exceeding 50 million in 2016.

The staff doubles 

Solvia increased its staff by 87% last year, going from 243 to 453 workers. 56% are located in Alicante, where the corporate headquarters and the core business of the company are, and also has employees in Madrid (20% of the total) and Barcelona (16%). 
35% of Solvia sales come from the network of independent real estate agents (APIs) it works with; 17% are contacts made by branches of Banco Sabadell, and the remaining 48% are direct sales made by the servicer through their website, participation in fairs and own agents.

The development, Key     

Another big Solvia´s business legs Solvia is housing development on behalf of Sabadell Bank on the best sites it has on its balance sheet. Since 2014, it totals 64 developments with more than 2,600 finished, in progress or planned homes. “With the direct development we allow the bank to maximize the value of their assets,” he explains. 
According to Garcia del Rio, unlike other bank real estate platforms, Solvia has an industrial and non-financial profile. In this regard, it promotes very little credit – only some portfolios coming from Ceiss- and its vocation is not to disappear once all the real estate bank load has been sold, but to expand its business to be a permanent real estate agent in the market. 
In this line, it is already negotiating with several funds in order to manage its assets and wants to grow in consultancy and sale of properties to family offices and all kind of investors in the middle segment of thye market Thus, in 2015 the retail sales of Solvia fell to 64% and the remaining 36% were operations with investors.

Original story: Expansion (by Sergi Saborit)

Translation: Aura Ree