Tag: Aelca

Cerberus Looks to Expand in Spain

3 October 2019 – Cerberus is looking to increase its presence in the Spanish residential real estate market. The fund, which already owns Inmoglaciar, is in talks with investment banks to potentially acquire a larger developer to further enhance its activities in the Iberian peninsula.

Most recently, the US fund bid on Solvia Desarrollos Inmobiliarios’s developer. However, though the fund was a finalist in the bidding process, it lost out to Oaktree, which paid €880-million for the firm, including the company’s structure and landholdings.

Other international funds have been quicker to raise their games in Spain.  Lone Star acquired Neinor and eventually took it public. Castlelake created Aedas with a land bank acquired during the crisis and also took it public. Värde took over Aelca, Parquesol and Vía Célere.

Cerberus is aiming to build 3,000 homes a year, based on its ownership of Immoglaciar and other potential acquisitions. The latest possibility is Inmobiliaria Espacio, which the Villar Mir Group put up for sale two weeks ago.

Original Story: Cinco Días – Alfonso Simón Ruiz / Pablo Martín Simón

Adaptation/Translation: Richard D. K. Turner

President of Vía Célere, Juan Antonio Gómez Pintado, Resigns

2 July 2019 – Richard D. K. Turner

Juan Antonio Gómez-Pintado, the Chairman and CEO of Vía Célere, announced his resignation from the company.  The decision came shortly after the firm completed its merger with Aelca. The current CFO of the group, Ignacio Morales, will take his place as CEO, while Värde Partners’ point man for the European real estate market, Francisco Milone, will assume the presidency.

Vía Célere is a benchmark for the sector, with a gross asset value of €2.2 billion, with a land bank of more than 24,000 units and more than 2,500 homes delivered. It has a presence throughout much of Spain, including Madrid (38%), Malaga (22%), Barcelona (10%), Seville (8%), and Valencia (6%), among others.

Original Story: El Confidencial – Ruth Ugalde

 

Árqura Homes: Sareb Launches a Property Developer to Build 17,000 Homes

11 June 2019 – Europa Press

Sareb has constituted its own property developer, Árqura Homes, through which it plans to build and sell 17,000 new homes over the next decade with an investment of €2.2 billion. The new entity looks set to rival the country’s main listed property developers on the basis of its land portfolio and investment plans.

Árqura has been constituted following the transfer of land and developments underway worth €811 million. 56% of its portfolio corresponds to just over 2 million m2 of land, 41% corresponds to developments in progress and the remaining 3% are developments that have been suspended.

The bad bank led by Jaime Echegoyen (pictured above) is going to team up with Värde for this initiative, which will hold 10% of Árqura’s share capital. Moreover, Aelca, a real estate company controlled by the US fund, will be responsible for the management and marketing of the new homes.

This operation represents Sareb’s second foray into the real estate market through the launch of its own firm after it launched the Socimi Témpore at the end of 2017. That firm became the third largest rental home company in the country and is currently on the verge of being sold to the fund TPG.

In the case of Árqura, it hopes to reach its cruising speed in terms of development between 2021 and 2022 and of homes deliveries between 2023 and 2024. Its homes will be distributed across 15 regions, although more than half (58%) will be concentrated in the most sought-after regions of the Community of Madrid, Cataluña and Andalucía.

Original story: Europa Press

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Neinor & Vía Célere Lead the Ranking of Forecast House Deliveries for 2019

28 January 2019 – Cinco Días

Year after year, the new major players in the house construction sector are seeing the numbers in their growth plans increase. During 2019, the largest property developers created since 2015, and some of those reborn from the ashes during this latest upwards cycle, are expected to approach their cruising speed, above all, the listed companies Neinor, Aedas and Metrovacesa, which have been called to lead the residential construction sector together with Vía Célere. Even so, the sector is still very fragmented with lots of small companies.

Neinor Homes and Vía Célere have become the two entities with the largest number of home deliveries this year. In both cases, 2,000 clients will receive the keys to their homes, according to figures provided to Cinco Días by around twenty property developers. In these forecasts, the companies have detailed three concepts for their plans for 2019: homes that they will launch onto the market, homes that they will start work on and forecast deliveries.

Neinor Homes, created in 2015, and led by Juan Velayos (…) expects to start work on 3,000 homes this year, coming close to the cruising speed that it defined during its IPO, and it will start to market another 2,000 units.

Meanwhile, Vía Célere, controlled by the US fund Värde Partners, is in the middle of integrating the assets of Aelca, the other property developer owned by Värde, which has now emptied its portfolio (…). It is the only one of the large players that is not yet listed on the stock market; its plans in that regard were postponed last year.

The listed firm Aedas, also created in 2017 with land from another US fund, in that case, Castlelake, is also perceiving an upwards turn in its numbers. This year, it will hand over 1,055 homes, start marketing 2,500 homes and start building 3,000 homes, just two years after first appearing on the stage, with David Martínez as its CEO.

Meanwhile, Metrovacesa, the other large listed company, controlled by Santander (and in which BBVA holds a minority stake), clearly leads the business plans, with up to 4,500 homes to be newly marketed and whose construction will be launched. This one-hundred-year-old real estate company, which was cleaned up by the banks following the crisis, launched its new project in 2017 with Jorge Pérez de Leza, from Grupo Lar, as the CEO.

In terms of those entities backed by funds, the rescued firm Habitat also stands out, reactivated last year by Bain Capital, and which is planning to market 3,000 homes this year. Similarly, Cerberus took control of Inmoglacier in 2017 (…). That firm declined to provide its forecasts to this newspaper, but it is also set to play a significant role, given that it has become one of the real estate arms of the US fund, one of the most active in the purchase of assets from the banks and which also owns Haya Real Estate as its servicer.

The group of twenty-odd companies consulted will hand over almost 16,000 homes this year, will start work on 34,000 units and will begin marketing another 30,000 properties. These figures reflect the enormous fragmentation in the sector, which in the last 12 months has started 103,000 homes in total, according to figures from the Ministry of Development as at October 2018.

Small specialist property developers still carry a lot of weight, unlike in other countries where large players exist. Moreover, even though the rate of residential construction has taken off since 2014, it is still well below the peak of 2006 when 865,000 building permits were granted.

In terms of the new players also boosted by the international funds, they include other developers with a high rate of house sales: AQ Acentor (owned by the German fund Aquila), which is going to put 1,700 homes up for sale; Kronos Homes (backed by several European and US investors), which will market another 1,600 homes; and ASG Homes (backed by the British firm ActivumSG), which plans to add another 1,000 homes.

In terms of the survivors of the crisis, Amenabar stands out, the Gipuzkoan company, which expects to start work on 3,608 homes next year and to hand over 1,245 units. Another of the stalwarts is the Madrilenian firm Pryconsa, owned by the Colomer family, which has already reached a high number in terms of house starts: 1,285. In more modest terms, other important firms include the Basque entity Inbisa and the new entity Áurea Homes, the residential subsidiary of the Navarran construction group ACR (…).

Original story: Cinco Días (by Alfonso Simón Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Vía Célere Completes its Merger with Aelca to Create a Giant Firm with Land for 25,000 Homes

16 January 2019 – El Confidencial

Vía Célere has completed the integration of the real estate assets (land and property developments) of Aelca, to become one of the largest property developers in Spain with a gross asset volume (GAV) of €2.2 billion and a land bank for the construction of 25,000 homes. From today, the company has the capacity to deliver an estimated 2,000 homes in 2019 and 5,000 homes in 2021.

To put that into context, Metrovacesa owns land for the construction of 38,000 homes, has a GAV of €2.6 billion, and so it is still the largest property developer in Spain. Meanwhile, Aedas has land for 14,521 homes and a GAV of €1.6 billion, whilst Neinor, with a GAV of €1.7 billion, has land for another 13,500 units.

Following the operation, Värde is now the owner of 75% of the shares in Vía Célere, whilst the other minority shareholders (Marathon, Attestor, BAML, Barclays, DB and JPM) own the remaining 25% stake. The company is also strengthening the diversification of its asset portfolio with 38% in Madrid, 20% in Málaga, 11% in Barcelona, 9% in Sevilla, 5% in Valencia and 17% in other provinces across the rest of Spain.

The purchase of Aelca by Vía Célere was made with one clear objective in mind: to grow the company so as to be able to list it on the stock market, given that the transaction has allowed the company chaired by Juan Antonio Gómez-Pintado (pictured above) to incorporate assets worth €1.3 billion (…).

Future stock market debut?

Since then, the rumours regarding the possible stock market debut of Vía Célere have been constant (…). In fact, it was initially scheduled for the spring of 2018, but it was always known that the property developer needed to be larger to be able to compete in the market with Neinor, Metrovacesa and Aedas (…).

Original story: El Confidencial 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Sareb Searches for an Ally to Develop Land Worth €2.5bn

3 January 2019 – Eje Prime

The bad bank is looking for a partner to increase its profitability through the development of its land. Sareb owns plots throughout Spain worth €5 billion, but almost half (€2.4 billion), lack building permits. For this reason, the company is combing the market to reach agreements with companies that specialise in converting plots into buildable sites.

The company is thus planning to turn the tide in its strategy for the management of its portfolio when the contracts that it has signed with several Spanish real estate servicers come to end, which they will do soon, according to El Economista.

At the end of the first half of 2018, Sareb’s buildable land had a value of €2.15 billion. The rest of the portfolio owned by the publicly owned company comprises rural plots, worth €450 million.

Sareb, with €36 billion on its balance sheet, is also working on the creation of a fund with a residential property developer in which it will own a large stake. By way of consideration (payment for that stake), the bad bank will grant land worth €800 million for the development of new homes. Aelca is currently the favourite in the running to be awarded that contract.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Aelca to Manage Sareb’s Land After Selling its own Assets to Vía Célere

2 October 2018 – El Economista

The property developer Aelca has sold its entire asset portfolio to Värde, including its land and developments in progress, which are going to be integrated into Vía Célere. Nevertheless, far from disappearing from our radars, the company founded by José Juan Martín and Javier Gómez is going to continue operating and, for the time being, is going to do so linked to Sareb, according to explanations provided by several sector sources speaking to this newspaper.

The company has been negotiating with the bad bank for months to sign an alliance that would turn it into the manager of a portfolio of land worth €800 million. At the outset, Sareb structured the operation in a different way, since its initial objective involved injecting those assets into a listed industrial company or one with concrete plans to debut on the stock market, to give liquidity to the land.

Nevertheless, Sareb’s plans for its property developer business took an about turn after both Aedas Homes and Vía Célere took the decision to exit the process in which they were finalists together with Aelca. In addition, the intentions of Värde, the main shareholder of both Vía Célere and Aelca, to integrate the assets of the latter into the former, were revealed, giving rise to the large property developer in Spain by asset volume, with a gross asset value (GAV) of €2.2 billion.

In this context, Sareb and Aelca sought a formula that would allow them to continue with their future partnership. And that involves creating a company with the bad bank’s property development business, in which it will hold a majority stake and Aelca will serve as the industrial partner and manager of the assets. Thus, according to the same sources, the most likely scenario is that a banking asset fund (‘fondo de activos bancarios’ or FAB) will be created, which will include land and residential projects from Sareb worth €800 million, in which the company chaired by Jaime Echegoyen will own around 90% and Aelca will acquire the remaining 10%.

On the other hand, the same sources state that Aelca will continue to buy land and build developments independently of Sareb. In this business, the founders of the real estate firm enter into play again, who despite having sold their stakes to Värde, will continue to be associated with the fund “to support the company as an independent manager and developer of residential properties in Spain”, explains the firm in a statement.

After the transaction, Javier de Oro will take on the role of Director General at Aelca, having served as Head of Real Estate at Aliseda, the exclusive administrator of Banco Popular’s real estate assets at risk.

Vía Célere, founded and chaired by Juan Antonio Gómez Pintado, will retain its identity and its 300 employees; depending on its on-going needs, it will resize its structure over the next few months. The new company will have the capacity to deliver around 2,000 homes in 2019 and 5,000 homes in 2021, with a more diversified portfolio, although ,most of its land is located in Madrid (38%), Málaga (20%) and Barcelona (11%), three of the markets with the highest demand.

Following the integration of Aelca’s assets, Värde will control 75% of Vía Célere, and the remaining 25% will be distributed between minority shareholders (Marathon, Attestor, BAML, Barclays, DB and JPM).

Original story: El Economista (by Alba Brualla)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Värde Merges Vía Célere & Aelca to Create one of Spain’s Largest RE Firms

1 October 2018 – El Español

The US fund Värde has created and will control one of the largest residential property developers in the country after merging the two companies in the sector in which it holds a stake, Vía Célere and Aelca, according to a statement issued by the entity.

The resulting company, which will retain the name Vía Célere, will have the capacity to deliver 2,000 homes in 2019 and 5,000 homes in 2021.

Värde will control 75% of the share capital of the new Vía Célere. Nevertheless, the firm will continue to be led by Juan Antonio Gómez-Pintado (pictured above), who also chairs the real estate trade association.

This is the US fund’s second merger operation in the Spanish real estate sector, after it integrated Dos Puntos, the real estate firm that it constituted with assets left over from the San José group, and Vía Célere in April 2017.

With its latest operation, Värde says that it is “reaffirming its commitment to the Spanish market”, which it considers is still highly “fragmented” and “needs greater consolidation by the operators to provide a rate of deliveries that reflects the budgets prepared”.

Värde, together with Lone Star, Castlelake, Blackstone and Cerberus, is one of the overseas funds that arrived in Spain during the peak of the crisis to buy up real estate assets, above all those that the banks had been left with after foreclosing debts.

Possible resizing of the workforce

According to Värde’s data, the property developer that it has created owns assets worth €2.2 billion, located all over the country, although the firm did not provide details about the new entity’s landbank in square metres or the number of homes under construction.

According to information provided by the new Vía Célere, 38% of its assets are located in Madrid, 20% in Málaga, 11% in Barcelona, 9% in Sevilla, 5% in Valencia and the remaining 17% in other provinces.

25% of the share capital of the new Vía Célere, which is controlled by Värde (75%), is distributed between other shareholders, all of them are foreign investors, such as Barclays.

At the operational level, the new real estate giant says that, in theory, it will hold onto the 300 employees that make up the workforce, although it does not rule out “resizing its structure” over the coming months, depending on its needs.

Original story: El Español

Translation: Carmel Drake

David Martínez: “Aedas Has Land on which to Build Homes for the next 4 Years”

8 September 2018 – Expansión

Aedas, the property developer in which the US fund Castlelake holds a stake, is continuing to push ahead and take on new challenges. As the first anniversary of its debut on the stock market approaches and with its business plan on track, the company is considering starting to buy plots of land that still require urban planning approval to anticipate possible price rises and improve margins, as well as to launch projects to sell to specialists companies in the rental sector, such as Socimis.

“We have a land bank spanning more than 1.5 million m2, which will allow us to build more than 14,000 homes. That gives us four years of visibility with respect to our business plan”, explains David Martínez, CEO of the company.

Aedas became the second largest property developer, after Neinor, to make its debut on the stock market after ten years of drought following the burst of the real estate bubble. It was followed shortly after by Metrovacesa, and several other companies are lining up to take the plunge, including Vía Célere and Aelca.

Aedas is sticking to the objectives announced in the listing brochure and unlike its rivals is not contemplating a reduction in its initial forecasts. “Our objective is to hand over more than 200 homes this year, more than 1,000 homes in 2019 and to exceed 2,000 homes in 2020. In total, by the end of 2020, we will have handed over more than 3,200 homes and we already have 114 developments underway, with more than 4,000 homes in different phases of development, which gives us a great deal of visibility over the objectives. We designed a realistic business plan and we will fulfil the forecasts for 2018, 2019 and 2020”, said the director.

Investment in land

The CEO of Aedas explains that during the first half of 2018, Aedas invested almost €100 million and purchased land for 1,905 homes, almost doubling the planned investment figure for the entire year. In addition, the company signed a corporate financing line for €150 million to continue expanding its land bank.

“We have detected interesting opportunities that fit with our investment criteria that are not going to be available in six months time. For that reason, we decided to bring forward our investment plan. Recently, we formalised a loan amounting to €150 million to provide us with sufficient financial resources to continue bringing forward the purchases planned in the business plan between now and 2023”, he explained.

At this point, Martínez opened the door to the possibility of purchasing non-finalist land. “There is a lot of land classified as “urbanisable” that still requires urban planning. Given that we now have land to cover our requirements for the next four years and we are not in any hurry, nor do we need to buy finalist land, we are considering land in areas with demand that has the partial plans approved but that still require some urban planning management”, he revealed.

Martínez highlighted that a significant percentage of the €150 million resulting from the loan formalised a few weeks ago will be used to buy non-finalist land. “With the economic recovery, new property developers are emerging who need to buy finalist land to get to work. For this reason, in some places, the prices of some plots of finalist land now exceed our expectations. We want to take advantage to buy land at more affordable prices even if that requires more management subsequently (…).

Rental

Similarly, the property developer is exploring other business opportunities, such as the sale of homes to Socimis and other vehicles specialising in the rental market. “One of the challenges involves supplying homes to young people. Aedas is exploring formulae that allow the construction of homes for rent, basically developing projects that we can sell to companies that specialise in rental. We have a very extensive and urban land bank”.

The director anticipates a “long” upwards cycle. “We are at the beginning of a cycle and notwithstanding the fact that we may see some adjustments in prices in certain specific towns, in general, it is going to last”, he predicted.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Valencia, in Search of Land for Construction

21 August 2018

The lack of available land is the reason that only 2% of the acquisitions of homes are for new housing in Spain’s third biggest city by population.

Valencia is after new land to re-energise its real estate market. With stable prices and an increasing number of transactions, the absence of new buildings is palpable in the statistics for the first quarter of this year, when just 2.3% of purchases (a total of 2,658) were for newly-built homes.

With a population that has been relatively stable in recent years, around 790,000 inhabitants, the city of Turia has doubled the number homes sold in the city since 2013, from 4,922 operations that year to 10,973 last year.

This has not yet pushed up prices, but it has been the basis for recovery. After the harsh effects of the crisis (apartments are 45% cheaper today than in 2007), housing prices reached 1,235.60 euros per square meter in the first quarter of this year, according to data on bank valuations at the Ministry of Public Works.

In homes less than five years old, the average price rose to 1,536.90 euros in the first quarter, while in second-hand homes, the investment needed to acquire a home fell to 1,233.70 euros per square meter.

The absence of development ready lands is a fact for the Spanish city’s real estate developers. According to a report by CBRE, the city is currently in the midst of desvloping and marketing sixty new construction projects, and it is expected that twenty more will be put on the market by the end of the year. Companies such as Neinor, Aelca and Aedas have housing developments in neighbourhoods such as Quatre Carreres, Patraix, Nou Campanar and Malilla Norte.

However, the high demand will cause prices to rise if more land is not made available, according to the consultancy. Metrovacesa’s project for the development of Benimaclet could be one of the most outstanding in this regard in Valencia. The real estate company controlled by Santander and BBVA is pushing for an agreement to present to Valencia City Council a project to build 1,500 homes in partnership with the local developer Urben.

Vía Célere is another of the developers active in the city: the company will build 22 homes in the Pechina neighbourhood, next to the Turia gardens. Aedas Homes is more advanced: the Spanish developer has sold another 120 homes in Turia’s capital through its Torres project, a residential complex that will be composed of two 16-floor apartment blocks. Aedas also has 252 flats in Valencia.

Residential prices in Valencia are now 45% lower than before the start of the crisis, but the city has great appeal, and the activity of private operators has been intense. Attikos is another local developer that has carried out work in the city, with the purchase of 1.9 million euros of development-ready land, where it will build 27 houses.

Offices on the rise

With a total of 63,480 companies, 88.2% of which are in the service industry, the office market in Valencia saw record allocations last year. According to a report by BNP Paribas Real Estate, the contracting amounted to 39,500 square meters in 2017, which caused a slight upward trend in rental prices, which are close to 14.5 euros per square meter in the city centre.

“Since the end of 2013, the last year of economic recession, demand has been positive,” the consultancy noted. “The good pace of allocations in recent years, together with the lack of new projects, are generating a considerable adjustment in the vacancy rate of the Valencian market which, fell to 10.4% at the end of 2017, out of a total stock of 774,000 square meters. This means that there are currently 80,546 square meters of available offices on the market,” they added.

One of the most notable operations in recent months was the rental of the former headquarters of CAM, leased by Solvia to the architectural firm Join Contract. The property’s new tenant will remodel it to transform it into a luxury hotel.

Original Story: EjePrime – C. De Angelis

Translation: Richard Turner