Tag: A Coruña

Inveravante’s Subsidiary Avantespacia is Building More than 2,800 Homes

19 March 2019 – Eje Prime

Avantespacia, the real estate subsidiary of Inveravante, the company chaired by the businessman Manuel Jove, is going to build more than 2,800 homes over the next few years across 19 developments in Spain and Morocco.

In Spain, the company already has 17 projects underway comprising more than 1,700 homes. The developments are located in six autonomous regions: Madrid, Andalucía, Cataluña, Galicia, Navarra and the Canary Islands.

In Morocco, the A Coruña-based company is marketing two tourist complexes in Casablanca and Tánger comprising 1,144 apartments in total.

Original story: Eje Prime (by Roger Arnau)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Habitat Debuts in A Coruña with a €19M Investment in a 96-Home Development

16 January 2019 – Eje Prime

Habitat has arrived in Galicia. The property developer is making its debut in the region with a development comprising 96 homes in A Coruña and an investment of €19 million, according to reports made by the company to EjePrime.

The company has acquired a plot of land with a buildable surface area of 10,500 m2, on which it is going to build a seventeen-storey tower. The marketing of the homes, located on Calle Aurelio Aguirre Galarraga, in the San Vicente de Elviña neighbourhood, will start during the first quarter of this year.

“With the start of this new project in A Coruña, Habitat has launched itself in Galicia, an area with a high degree of urban development and which has enormous potential for growth over the coming years”, as highlighted by José Carlos Saz, the CEO of the company.

This latest acquisition forms part of Habitat’s business strategy, which will involve an investment of €500 million by 2021. The company’s plans involve constructing new developments with the objective of delivering more than 2,000 homes per year from 2021.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Unifersa Buys a 42,000m2 Industrial Plot in A Coruña

4 January 2019 – Eje Prime

Unifersa is expanding its warehouse. The Galician company, which is dedicated to the wholesale of industrial supplies and professional hardware, has acquired a plot of land measuring 42,000 m2 in A Coruña to expand its facilities.

The company will initially invest €10 million in the new site located in A Larancha, which will replace the headquarters that the firm has in Fene and which occupies 10,000 m2. The physical growth of the firm thus accompanies the development of the business, whose turnover exceeds €20 million.

If the forecasts from the consulting firm Savills Aguirre Newman are confirmed, the logistics market will have closed 2018 with an investment of €1.2 billion, 42% higher than the result for the previous year. That figure is accompanied by new demands from companies in the sector, which are looking for centres with a 100% logistics profile, as well as trying to find spaces with potential for return.

Nevertheless, the progression of the Spanish logistics sector has its response in e-commerce, which has boosted the sector to make 2018 one of its best years. E-commerce is the main factor responsible for the good performance of the business, which firms such as Airbus, Mercadona and Amazon have joined with new centres.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Pelayo Capital to Invest €60M in the Conversion of the Dolce Vita Shopping Centre into a Retail Park

3 December 2018 – Eje Prime

Pelayo Capital is going to create a new shopping centre from scratch in A Coruña. The fund is going to invest €60 million in Breogán Park, the retail park that is going to be constructed on the site of the former Dolce Vita shopping centre, which is going to be demolished.

According to reports from Dokei RE, the company that is going to manage the asset, Breogán Park will have a surface area of 45,000 m2 and 550 additional parking spaces, which will be added to the 3,000 that already exist underground. The inauguration of the centre is scheduled for 2021.

The retail park is going to be located on the A Coruñan industrial estate of A Grela and is currently in the planning phase with suppliers bidding to undertake the work. The plot on which Breogán Park is going to be built spans a total above ground surface area of 57,000 m2.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

ASG Homes is Looking for Land in the North of Spain

24 October 2018 – Eje Prime

ASG Homes is raising its head and looking north in its growth plan for Spain. The property developer, a subsidiary of the German group ActivumSG, is analysing residential projects in cities such as Bilbao, San Sebastián, Santander and A Coruña. “We are opening ourselves up to other areas”, says Víctor Pérez Arias, CEO at ASG Homes speaking to Eje Prime. At the same time, ASG Homes is already thinking about launching its sixth fund next year, once it has fully invested the current one

The group’s fifth fund, which specialises in the residential segment in Spain and Germany, still has €200 million to invest, of the almost €500 million that it was created with. To date, the real estate manager has invested around €250 million through ASG Homes.

The objective of the company is to use up the funds during the first quarter of 2019. To this end, the property developer is accelerating its investments so that a dozen projects are ready to come out of the oven “in the very short term”.

Amongst the plans already underway, the firm is constructing and renovating buildings in Valencia, Sevilla, Alicante, Salamanca, Estepona (Málaga) and Alcalá de Henares. In total, a portfolio of seven projects, to which an eighth will soon be added in Marbella.

With more than half a million m2 of land located all over Spain, ASG Homes has the capacity to build up to 5,000 homes, of which more than 2,000 units are already being marketed. Nevertheless, the manager aspires to double the size of that portfolio to 10,000 homes and, in this sense, the property developer is looking to the north of the country, and to Valladolid.

One of the reasons for this open-mindedness is the “uncertainty in terms of the timings” that the fund is finding in several of the provincial capitals where it already has a presence, says Pérez Arias. “There are some cities where we have decided to not invest again because of the problems imposed by some of the public administrations”, complained the director.

The search for opportunities in the north forms part of phase 3 of the fund, as described by the company, which also involves scanning the first rings and outskirts of two of the large capitals where it already has a presence, Madrid and Sevilla. Barcelona does not form part of the roadmap for ASG Homes, which is only investing in large volume projects, for the time being. “We back developments with a minimum of 200 homes”, says Pérez Arias, who forecasts that the last key for the twenty or so developments that his firm is planning to build with its current vehicle will be handed over in 2022 (…).

Original story: Eje Prime (by J. Izquierdo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Dextra Corporate Launches Residential Fund Focusing on Galicia

2 March 2018 – Eje Prime

The Barcelona-based corporate finance firm has created a fund manager, Swan Real Estate Management, whose first vehicle aims to acquire, renovate and sell on up to ten residential buildings in Galicia.

Dextra Corporate is throwing itself into the housing market. The Barcelona-based finance firm, led by former Deloitte employees Iker Zabalza and Stephan Koen, has created Swan Real Estate Management, a fund manager to invest in the Spanish residential market. Its first investment vehicle, Seagull Real Estate, will get going shortly with €14 million to spend and will travel exclusively to Galicia where it plans to buy up to ten buildings. For this company, Dextra has been supported by Andbank: 90% of the investment is going to proceed from Galician customers of the Andorran bank.

The aim of the project, in which the manager AKM, led by Xavier González, is also involved, is to look for assets in second-tier cities in Spain, which are still in the recovery phase. The plan is to renovate the buildings and sell them on on a home by home basis.

Seagull will focus mainly on properties in central areas of A Coruña and Vigo, which may be of interest to customers with a medium-high purchasing power, according to Expansión. The manager’s forecast is to purchase between five and ten residential buildings.

Although it is going to start off with €14.4 million, Swan hopes to increase the investment figure of its Galician vehicle to €25 million. With the addition of bank financing, the spending capacity of the fund could rise to €50 million.

For Project Seagull, Dextra has teamed up with local businessman Manuel Corbal, who has extensive experience in the Galician real estate sector, in the areas of construction and promotion.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Vía Célere Invested €227M in 2017 Buying 473,000 m2 of Land

5 February 2018 – Eje Prime

The property developer led by Juan Antonio Gómez-Pintado accelerated its pace in 2017. By the end of the year, Vía Célere had invested in land purchases amounting to €227 million, whereby increasing the surface area of the company’s buildable land portfolio by 473,000 m2.

With its stock market debut looming, the company also closed some high-profile corporate operations last year, such as the integration of Dos Puntos into the group, in which the US fund Värde Partners has held a stake for a year, and the carve-out of its property business.

Vía Célere’s portfolio of land for residential construction now spans 1.43 million m2. With these plots, the property developer has the capacity to build 12,200 homes in Spain over the next few years.

The most recent purchases made by the real estate company in this field were in Barcelona, A Coruña and Ibiza. The investment on the White Island was the first to be made by the company in that area of the Balearics.

By region, besides the provinces already mentioned, Vía Célere closed land purchase operations in 2017 in provinces such as Madrid, Sevilla, Valladolid and Girona. During the course of its ten-year life, Vía Célere has handed over more than 2,300 homes, a figure that, in light of the business plan launched, it is seeking to increase to 10,000 units over the next two years.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Andbank Launches Fund To Invest In Galician Real Estate

13 November 2017 – La Voz de Galicia

(…) The real estate market in Spain is back with a vengeance, above all in the central areas of large cities where, due to a lack of (past) activity in the property development sector, there is now insufficient supply to cover the growing demand (…).

And this business opportunity has not passed unnoticed for the financial sector, which, in an environment of low-interest rates and minimal profitability on the most conservative products, has launched a series of investment vehicle. Their objective is to buy buildings in prime areas, renovate them and then sell the resulting homes on to individuals, whereby generating high returns for investors.

This model, which was first tested, successfully, in Madrid and Barcelona, is now being introduced in Galicia, with the help of Andbank. The entity, specialising in private banking, has launched a real estate investment vehicle, Seagull Real Estate, which is going to acquire residential buildings in the central areas of A Coruña and Vigo, undertake comprehensive renovation work and then sell the homes (individually, in order to maximise prices).

According to Rubén Casales (pictured above), Director of Andbank’s branch in A Coruña, this is the first product that focuses exclusively on the Galician market, and it is being born with the objective of securing investment of €20 million (minimum of €250,000), which it will use to perform between five and ten operations, given that in order to minimise risk, external financing should not exceed 50%.

The appeal of this product for savers is an expected return of 14%, well above the yields they can expect to achieve on fixed income and other conservative products and, which Casales justifies due to the illiquidity of the fund, which obliges investors to maintain their investment for at least five years.

For the execution of this project, Andback has teamed up with two local partners: Ünique Singular Properties and Desarrolla. The first is the only Galician real estate agency specialising in prime residential assets and is the market leader in unique properties; it will help identify investment opportunities and will be responsible for selling the homes once they have been renovated. The second is a construction company known for its renovation work and with a great deal of activity in the autonomous region, which will take care of giving the properties a facelift.

More than 50 properties

According to Andbank, there are lots of investment opportunities: “We have identified some very interesting buildings due to their architectural uniqueness”, says Luis Touriño, territorial director of the entity in Galicia. (…). The bank currently has a team of eight people analysing more than fifty properties, of which between eight and ten will be selected.

Casales explains that the response from investors is proving positive, and so they hope to be able to launch the vehicle before the end of the year (…).

The launch of this fund is another sign of the investor interest in the Galician real estate sector, which, although somewhat lagging behind other parts of Spain, has resumed its upwards path. This news follows the announcement by a group of Galician real estate companies linked to the trade association Fegein that they are going to create a Socimi, which will manage assets in Vigo, Santiago and the north of Lugo, and which seeks to trade on the MAB.

Original story: La Voz de Galicia (by Gabriel Lemos)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Inditex Invests €57M In New Logistics Platform In A Coruña

1 June 2017 – Expansión

The Inditex Group is going to invest €57 million on the construction of a logistics platform for the receipt, storage and classification of textiles and accessories in A Laracha (A Coruña). The new site will work in a “totally integrated” way with the Group’s existing logistics platform in Arteixo.

Original story: Expansión

Translation: Carmel Drake

Galician Gov’t Sells 24% Of Its Discounted Industrial Land In 2 Years

23 January 2017 – La Opinión A Coruña

The Galician regional government (La Xunta) has recorded turnover of €31 million from the sale of 304 plots over the last two years, after applying a discount of €23.7 million. Its sales increased ten fold during the first year, but decreased by 55% in 2016.

The sale of industrial land by La Xunta decreased by 55% last year, despite significant reductions, of up to 50%, on the initial prices. Acquisitions of plots of land in public business parks have slowed, even though the large discounts and payment facilities have continued. Two years ago, the Executive launched a plan to lighten its stock of industrial land. The result is the sale of 24% of the land it put on offer.

In 2015, the Galician autonomous government, through Xestur and IGVS, managed to sell off 200 plots of land, covering 491,140 m2, after it launched its industrial land sales plan. It was a wake up call, given that it multiplied the surface area sold in the previous twelve months almost ten-fold, up from 53,515 m2 to almost 500,000 m2. Nevertheless, one year later, only 104 plots were purchased, covering a surface area of 195,722 m2. As such, four times more land was sold than before the discount plan was launched, but half as much than during the debut year.

Why the decrease? “There was a significant amount of activity in 2015 because business people made a huge effort to buy, as they expected the discounted prices to apply for one year only. In 2016, they realised that the discounts were permanent and so they were no longer in such a hurry to buy”, say sources at the Regional Ministry of Infrastructure. (…).

After two years, the Galician regional government has sold 304 plots, covering a combined surface area of 686,863 m2, which represents 23.8% of the total space it initially put up for sale. (…).

674 more plots are still on the market, covering a total surface area of 2.1 million m2 and with a global sales price of €139 million.

The sales volumes of plots in industrial parks vary by province. A Coruña was ranked second in terms of the number of operations (19.4%), behind Lugo (46%). It was followed by Ourense (18.6%) and Pontevedra (8%). (…).

Original story: La Opinión A Coruña (by P. Pérez, I. Bascoy and J. Carneiro)

Translation: Carmel Drake