Category: Retail & Shopping Centers

Casanova Completes Lightning Operation On Calle Preciados

3 March 2017 – Cinco Días

Trinitario Casanova has completed his second lightning operation in Madrid. (…). On Wednesday, the Murcian businessman formalised the purchase of a building on Madrid’s Calle Preciados, the most expensive street for retail premises in the city, and immediately sold it to the Texan fund Hines.

The property acquired on c/Preciados by the owner of the Baraka Group has a surface area of almost 1,700 m2, spread over a basement floor, ground floor and four above ground floors. The idea is that the whole building will be renovated for commercial use and converted into a flagship store for a major brand.

This is the same approach to a deal that Casanova adopted when he purchased a Bankia branch on Gran Vía in Madrid last year. In that case, the end buyer was also Hines, after the hamburger chain Five Guys confirmed that it would lease the space. In exchange, Casanova obtained a fast profit.

It also resembles the major operation that the businessman has signed in Madrid recently – the purchase of Edificio España from the Chinese group Dalian Wanda. That transaction, amounting to €272 million, has not been closed yet, but the hotel chain Riu has confirmed its participation as a partner investor and brand, as well as the manager of the future hotel. Nevertheless, in September, the Murcian businessman admitted that he still needed to find €200 million to finance the renovation work (…).

In the case of the property at number 13, Calle Preciados, Casanova has purchased it from several families, in an operation advised by Pérez-Llorca and Cushman & Wakefield. The parties have not revealed the consideration paid.

Cortefiel has decided to close the store of its Springfield brand, which occupied this building until now. The property also currently houses a local fashion company called Símbolo.

Original story: Cinco Días (by A.S.)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Intu Wants To Open Europe’s Largest Shopping Centre In Alcobendas

23 February 2017 – Mis Locales

The Spanish capital could soon become home to the largest shopping centre in Europe. The company Intu is working on a new mega-project.

The goal of the British company is to construct the largest shopping centre in Europe. The exact location will be in the Escobares I sector of Alcobendas and it will cover a surface area of 500,000 m2. It will be larger than all of the shopping and leisure centres constructed to date and will take over from Puerto Venecia (located in Zaragoza) as the largest shopping centre on the continent (it has a surface area of 206,000 m2).

Intu is currently engaged in tough negotiations with the owners of the land, including Sareb, and in turn, with the property developer, Levitt-Bosch Aymerich. The multi-national is demanding that ownership of the site be transferred, but it is only intending to make the payment once the property has been constructed. This proposal is causing problems and no agreement has yet been reached regarding the form of payment or the sales price.

Intu is one of the largest shopping centre managers in Europe. In Spain, besides Puerto Venecia, it also operates Intu Asturia in Oviedo and four others, in conjunction with Eurofunds.

Original story: Mis Locales

Translation: Carmel Drake

Revenues At Neinver’s Spanish Outlets Rose By 11% In 2016

22 February 2017 – Expansión

The Spanish outlet centres managed by Neinver generated revenues of €287 million last year, up by 11% compared to 2015. Similarly, the crowds at these centres increased by 10% to reach 18.5 million visitors.

This data does not include activity at Viladecans The Style Outlet – the sixth centre that Neinver manages in Spain – as it only opened its doors in Barcelona in October. The centre, which received investment amounting to more than €80 million, ended the year with more than 800,000 visitors.

The Director of Neinver in Spain, Eduardo Ceballos, explained that, over the last five years, both the number of visitors and sales (at its outlets) have experienced continuous growth. “Moreover, 2016 was marked by the opening of Viladecans The Style Outlet, the first centre in Barcelona’s metropolitan area, which has achieved record visitor numbers during its first two months of activity, and by the agreement to manage the Fashion Outlet Barakaldo in the north of Spain, which strengthens our position as the leading player in the sector”.

Across Europe, total sales at the outlets managed by the company amounted to €1,183 million, up by 10% compared to 2015 and the number of visitors rose by 8% to 50 million.

Neinver – which has operations in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain, The Netherlands and the Czech Republic – manages 21 centres in total, with a combined retail surface area of 537,700 m2 and almost 1,700 stores.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Bankinter & Sonae Sierra Launch €400M Retail Socimi

20 February 2017 – El Economista

Bankinter and Sonae Sierra have launched a Socimi, Ores Socimi, which plans to channel investment amounting to €400 million into small- and medium-sized commercial real estate assets in Spain and Portugal, according to a statement issued by the bank and the real estate company.

Ores Socimi has been conceived as an investment vehicle for the private banking clients of the entity chaired by María Dolores Dancausa (pictured above).

In fact, a portfolio of these clients already owns a 86% stake in the firm’s capital, in which Bankinter and Sonae Sierra hold stakes of 10% and 3.75%, respectively, following a €196 million capital increase when the firm was constituted.

The official launch of Ores Socimi will take place this week, on Wednesday 22 February, when its shares will begin trading on the MAB. It will be the 31st Socimi to debut on the Alternative Investment Market.

Ores Socimi is being created with the aim of acquiring a portfolio of commercial buildings in good locations in the main cities of Spain and Portugal.

Commercial assets

Specifically, the firm owned by Bankinter and Sonae will place its focus on retail premises on main high streets, as well as on supermarkets and hypermarkets and out of town retail parks, rather than on large shopping centres.

Ores Socimi will be chaired by Fernando Moreno, Director General of the Retail Bank at Bankinter. His investment and management strategy will follow a “product and rigorous policy”, and Sonae Sierra will be responsible for the real estate management of the assets and the administration of the company.

Bankinter has formed this partnership with a company that specialises in retail assets in order to launch an investment vehicle for its clients. Sonae has a presence in around a dozen countries and currently owns a portfolio of 45 shopping centres, which have a market value of more than €6,000 million.

Original story: El Economista 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Villar Mir Sells 50% Of Canalejas To PokerStars Founder

13 February 2017 – Expansión

Mark Scheinberg, the co-founder of the website PokerStars, has fought off other candidates, such as the Middle Eastern fund Adia, the real estate fund TH Real Estate and the banker Jaime Gilinski in the bid for the 50% stake in the company Centro Canalejas de Madrid that Villar Mir put up for sale last year.

The Israelí businessman and Isle of Man resident will pay €225 million for half of the development company behind the complex, and OHL will receive €78.85 million of that amount, after it sold the 17.5% stake that it owned in the company through its subsidiary OHL Desarrollos, confirmed the company last Thursday in a statement to Spain’s National Securities and Exchange Commission (CNMV).

Following the operation, OHL Desarrollos and Grupo Villar Mir, which will continue as shareholders of the company with stakes of 17.5% and 32.5%, respectively, will retain control over the management of the project until it opens. The sale will generate a profit of approximately €29 million for OHL.

Scheinberg, who is 43 years old and who has a fortune worth $4,100 million according to Forbes, thanks to the success of his online gaming portal, has whereby become the new partner in the project that Villar Mir is undertaking in the centre of Madrid. It involves the renovation of seven former Santander office buildings into a luxury complex containing a Four Seasons hotel, c. 20 high-end homes and a shopping arcade covering 9,000 m2. (…).

For this development, Villar Mir created a company in which its subsidiary Inmobiliaria Espacio owned a 75% stake, with the remaining 25% owned by OHL, which also assumed the roles of promoter, developer and construction company. The budget for the development was set at €500 million, an amount that the group was intending to fund in its entirety.

Nevertheless, problems with the group’s builder caused Villar Mir to propose the sale of a minority stake in the complex, amongst other divestments (…).

To accelerate this sale, Grupo Villar Mir engaged the real estate consultancy firm Colliers last September. A multitude of investors, from all sorts of backgrounds, were interested in the asset. In the end, the vendor opted for Scheinberg as a partner in its Madrilenian project. (…).

Project

The Canalejas Complex will open at the beginning of 2019, three and a half years later than planned, after work at the site was temporarily suspended due to differences in opinion regarding the conservation of the protected elements of the properties. (…).

Original story: Expansión (by Rocío Ruiz and Carlos Morán)

Translation: Carmel Drake