Tag: Avintia

Avintia Invests €50M to Build 38 Luxury Homes in Baqueira

17 March 2019 – El Confidencial

Baqueira Beret is Spain’s most exclusive ski resort but no new urbanisations have been built there for more than 30 years because there is hardly any land left.

Nevertheless, a few months ago, the Avintia Group purchased the last major block of buildable land, spanning 60,000 m2, where it is planning to build the town’s most luxurious development yet: 38 homes with starting prices of €2 million at the foot of the mountain. Half of the properties have already been reserved and the group expects to invest more than €50 million in the project, known as Pleta Arriu.

All of the homes, which will measure between 350 m2 and 470 m2, will have direct access to the slopes and no expense will be spared in terms of luxury. Each property will be equipped with a swimming pool, spa, sauna, cinema room, ski room and elevator, given that the homes will have five storeys. The design will be contemporaneous and the homes will have huge windows for light with spectacular views of the Arán Valley.

Original story: El Confidencial (by E. Sanz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Avintia & Gesurbe Boost Locare: €55M & 3 New Projects in Madrid

13 December 2018 – Eje Prime

Locare is searching for its place in the Spanish rental market. The real estate investment manager, in which Grupo Avintia and Gesurbe hold stakes, has launched the development of its first 405 homes in different locations across the Community of Madrid. The combined investment for the projects will exceed €55 million, according to comments made by Andrés Horcajada, founder and CEO of Locare, speaking to Eje Prime.

Specifically, the company is building 171 homes in Torrelodones (which will be finished during the second quarter of 2019), 110 in Villalba and 124 in Móstoles. The last two developments will enter into operation during 2020, following an average construction period of between 12 and 18 months. Together, the plots span a constructed surface area of 37,000 m2.

“We want to end 2019 with 1,100 homes under development, not only in the Community of Madrid, but also in other parts of the country”, explained the executive. Pamplona, Ibiza and Zaragoza are the cities that Locare currently has it its sights for its next projects, with the aim of investing €65 million.

The company, created in 2016, undertakes all of the phases of the real estate cycle, from raising capital to operating assets. Locare also takes care of searching for plots for social housing units, a requirement shared by all of the plots that the manager acquires.

“We do not buy properties that are already constructed, given that for us build to rent is fundamental”, explained Horcajada. The director added that this business model allows “investors to take advantage of the first phases of the real estate cycle and for the resulting product to be designed specifically for the rental market”.

Tectum is Locare’s ally 

Locare has teamed up with the capital manager Tectum Real Estate to attract investors to finance its projects. “Tectum allows us to group together Spanish family offices primarily and it is the company through which we relate directly with them and we deal with their demands”, explained the CEO of the company.

Besides Tectum, the company led by Horcajada also collaborates with the construction firm Avintia as an industrial partner, although the director explains that they do not have an exclusive contract with them when it comes to carrying out construction projects.

On the other hand, Locare has launched new technology into the world with another strategic collaborator, the proptech Mitula. “Through this platform, we are undertaking data analysis, both of the demand as well as of the supply of each one of the locations in which we are launching”, explained the executive.

In terms of the company’s long-term plans, Horcajada confirmed that the debut on the stock market “is not a plan that features amongst the desires of investors”. Similarly, the director explains that Locare will focus especially on the Spanish residential rental market, for which it predicts a promising future. “Housing is going to be increasingly configured for use (rental) and not for ownership, like in other European companies”, concludes the executive.

Locare is a real estate investment manager dedicated to residential rental. Although both Grupo Avintia and Gesurbe have been linked to this market niche for more than eight years, Locare was created as an independent platform in 2016.

Original story: Eje Prime (by Berta Seijo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Aelca to Invest €200M Per Year in Land Purchases

28 February 2018 – Expansión

Aelca is moving forward with firm steps and already forms part of the new generation of listed property developers controlled by funds or, in its case, is on the verge of making its stock market debut. The firm constituted in 2012 by Javier Gómez and José Juan Martín, now the joint CEOs of the group, closed last year with a profit before tax (PAT) of €25.5 million, up by 154% YoY, and revenues of €132.2 million, up by 27%. And, it is preparing to continue growing through purchases.

“In 2018, we are going to have a production capacity, both in terms of construction work as well as pre-sales, of around 6,300 homes and, in 2019, we should reach cruising speed, with the delivery of around 2,000 or 2,500 homes. We have been working on and handing over developments since 2014, and growing at sustainable rates”, explains Javier Gómez to Expansión.

Specifically, the company sold 1,118 units in 2017 and handed over almost 500 homes. This year, pre-sales are expected to exceed 1,600 homes and revenues are expected to amount to around €160 million or €170 million.

Aelca wrote a new chapter in its history in the middle of 2016 when the US fund Värde purchased a 75% stake in the property developer from Avintia for €50 million and gave a boost to the business. “Investment in the company over the last 18 months since then has been significant, with more than €400 million spent on land purchases. Over the next few years, we plan to invest between €150 million and €200 million per year in land”, explains the director.

After several capital increases, Värde currently controls 80% of Aelca, whilst the remaining 20% remains in the hands of the founders.

In terms of the stock market debut, Gómez acknowledges that going public is a natural exit for the funds and expects that it could be an option in 2019. For the director, although Aelca is already the right size to list, the group’s plans involve continuing to grow and taking advantage of opportunities.

Gómez acknowledges that to debut on the stock market after its competitors may be a risk, but adds “we have a history of deliveries, a strong track record and a set of results that support us”.

Madrid and Andalucía

Specifically, the group has purchased land in Dos Hermanas (Sevilla), mostly from CaixaBank, for a mega-project involving 2,100 homes.

Moreover, like its rivals such as Neinor, Aelca is looking at the possibility of buying up non-finalist land and is analysing operations worth between €50 million and €70 million. “We are analysing the option of acquiring land under development, at the most advanced stage possible, in Madrid and Andalucía”, he explains.

Currently, Aelca has a land portfolio spanning 1.3 million m2, worth more than €1 billion and with capacity to launch around 13,000 homes.

The company has six regional offices in País Vasco, Cataluña, Madrid, Málaga and the Comunidad Valenciana and is not planning to expand its footprint at this stage. “There are still great opportunities in those locations”.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Alicante Global Group Teams Up With Basque Property Developer Ferrocarril

25 October 2017 – Valencia Plaza

Alicante Global Group, the new real estate venture from the former President of the Santa Ana group, Juan Antonio Iniesta, and the former President of the Alicante employers’ association Coepa, Moisés Jiménez, to place property developments foreclosed by the banks back on the market, is expanding its base.

According to Iniesta himself, in statements to Alicante Plaza, the businessmen from Alicante have joined forces with the Basque property developer Grupo Ferrocarril (which is now based in Rivas Vaciamadrid), which will be in charge of finishing and selling those developments.

As this newspaper published at the time, Alicante Global Group, comprising the Alicante-based companies The Casas Company and Alicia Hoteles, was created with the intention of acquiring developments foreclosed by banks during the toughest years of the real estate crisis, completing them, revaluing them and putting them back on the market. The Group signed its first operation in May with Liberbank: two residential towers in Gran Vía, Alicante, and several villas in the luxury residential development Altea Hills.

The partner that Iniesta and Jiménenez have been looking for in this regard is the Basque property developer Grupo Ferrocarril, which specialises in the construction of private homes and social housing, both in its home region and also in Madrid in recent years. The group, chaired by the businessman Rafael González Cobos, has, in turn, formed a strategic alliance of its own with the Madrilenian giant in the sector Grupo Avintia, owned by the property developer Antonio Martín Jiménez, which has been heavily backing the Community of Valencia: at the start of 2016, it inaugurated its offices in Valencia capital, and it now has eight projects underway there (one of which is actually in Alicante) and more than 600 homes under construction. Together, the two firms have created the Ferrocarril Avintia group to operate in South America (…).

According to explanations provided by Iniesta to questions posed by this newspaper, it is likely that Martín Jiménez’s company (Grupo Avintia) will be responsible for the execution of most of the improvements of the acquired developments, by virtue of its agreement with Ferrocarril (…).

Original story: Valencia Plaza (by David Martínez)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Aelca Plans To Sell c. 1,000 Homes In 2017

10 April 2017 – El Mundo

The map of the new real estate sector is continuing to take shape, one step at a time, and it is becoming increasingly clear who the main players are going to be and what role each one of them is going to adopt in this cycle. The latest star to come to the fore is Aelca, a property developer founded in Madrid at the end of 2012, in which the US fund Värde Partners purchased a 75% stake in the middle of 2016, taking over the shares that the construction company Avintia had held until then.

After working for almost five years in a very discrete way, Aelca has arrived at this current point in the recovery of the real estate sector with a very clear objective: “We want to be the leading house builder in this new cycle”, explain its founders and CEOs Javier Gómez and José Juan Martín (pictured above, left and right, respectively).

A priori, this aim does not sound like a particularly original aim – it is very similar to those expressed by the three other great property developers, namely, Neinor Homes, Aedas Homes and Vía Célere. (…).

Perhaps, the main difference between Aelca and the other “big four”, as sources at Aelca refer to this select group of giants in the property development sector, is the number of homes that the company has already completed. “We have been working behind the scenes, preparing the way for where we are today”, say Gómez and Martín. “None of the other three large companies has completed 900 homes like we have over the last few years”, they add.

That figure, beyond its absolute value, needs to be put in context, remembering that during the crisis that hit the housing market between 2008 and the end of 2014, almost all sales and starts of new build homes were suspended. (…).

The financial partner’s (Värde) entry into the company’s share capital came in response to the need for growth that its founders understood a property developer such as theirs needed, in order to survive in the residential market that is being created. “In the nine months that we have been working with Värde, we have gone from having land on which to build 3,000 homes to having double that figure”, said Martín. (…).

Aelca closed 2016 with turnover of €103 million and more than 600 homes sold. This year, the company plans to increase revenues by 49%, to €154 million and sell around 1,000 homes.

Projects underway

Currently, the company has 43 property developments in progress in the Community of Madrid, with a total of 1,316 homes. Its delegation in the South region has projects comprising 498 units; the Cataluña-Aragón delegation is building 241 homes, and the Valencia and Alicante region is constructing 145 units. In total, 2,200 homes under construction, according to its plans, and that figure will rise a lot soon.

In line with its strategic objective to consolidate its dominant position in the residential market, Aelca plans to start marketing another 16 developments this year in several locations across the provinces of Barcelona, Málaga, Valencia, Vizcaya and Madrid. (…).

Original story: El Mundo (by Luis M. De Ciria)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Värde Buys Aelca From Avintia For €50M

28 June 2016 – Alimarket

The US investment fund Värde Partners is continuing to pursue its strategy to become a key player in the revived Spanish property market. Within a week of acquiring the property developer Dospuntos – the new face of the former real estate arm of the construction group San José – it has closed the purchase of the real estate arm of another major Spanish construction company.

As such, Värde will pay almost €50 million to acquire 75% of the share capital in Aelca Desarrollos Inmobiliarios, the company that undertakes the residential business of the construction group Avintia, which the group chaired by Antonio Martín Jiménez put up for sale at the beginning of the year.

Aelca, created in 2012, has proven itself to be one of the most active property developers in the Community of Madrid, with a portfolio of more than a dozen new build developments under construction, which together contained around 1,000 homes at the beginning of the year. Aelca, which is dedicated to the development, marketing and management of homes, recorded turnover of €9.91 million in 2014, although it was forecast to generate revenues of around €70 million last year, thanks to the completion of more than 200 homes. Aelca’s workforce comprises 17 employees.

Following the sale of Aelca, the Avintia group, headed by the construction firm Avintia Proyectos y Construcciones, which has been responsible for executing Aelca’s developments to date, will now be able to focus its activity on the construction sector, where it is one of the most important residential construction companies in the country, by turnover, as well as in the areas of facilities services, retail, hotels and tertiary development, commercial and logistics. Avintia was forecast to generate revenues of €259 million in 2015, with 770 employees on its payroll and trade volumes of more than €423 million.

Värde Partners manages more than $10,000 million in assets around the world and it has starred in some of the most significant real estate transactions in Spain in recent years. As such, in addition to its acquisitions of the real estate arms of the San José and Avintia groups, it has also joined forces with the fund Kennedy Wilson to acquire the real estate platform Aliseda from Banco Popular.

Original story: Alimarket

Translation: Carmel Drake

Avintia Puts 75% Of Property Developer Aelca Up For Sale

11 March 2016 – El Confidencial

The construction company Avintia is looking for a buyer for the 75% stake that it holds in Aelca, the young Madrilenian property developer founded by Javier Gómez Fernández and José Juan Martín Montes. According to market sources, the sales process – which was launched a few months ago – is now quite advanced and several important investment funds have been participating in it. Morgan Stanley, amongst others, exited the process because it rejected the vendor’s demand for purchase exclusivity. Sources at Aelca declined to comment on the matter.

The businessman Antonio Martín Jiménez, founder of Avintia, has decided to sell his stake in the company at a time when the recovery of the residential market is already a reality in Madrid and when many investment funds have fully launched themselves into property development in our country and, in particular, in the capital.

Funds such as Lone Star, Castlelake, Värde, Cerberus, HMC, Kennedy Wilson and Pimco are just a few examples of large international investors that have decided to enter this market. In particular, Castlelake, which has a sizeable portfolio of land in Madrid after acquiring Project Crossover from Sareb, has chosen Aelca as its local partner for the launch and marketing of several residential projects.

A year ago, José Juan Martín, the CEO of Aelca, explained its partnership with that fund. “We are working with them in Valdemarín (see above), in Madrid, on a development containing 32 homes. We are also working with them on the promotion of 90 homes in Hospitalet, in Barcelona, whilst in Estepona, we have a project with them involving 70 secondary residence homes”. (…).

Created in 2007

Avintia, is a 100% Spanish company, created in 2007, which specialises in public and private construction projects. (…). Eight companies operate under its umbrella: Avintia (construction), Aelca (property development), ADI (real estate development), Brick O’clock (services), Adh (hotel development), Avora (international business in Colombia), Avintia Empresas (development of tertiary industrial properties) and Avintia Racing, the company that owns a Moto GP team. In 2008, at the height of the crisis, the parent company recorded revenues of €110 million, whilst in 2015, its forecast turnover amounted to €400 million.

Aelca, the group’s property developer arm, has a strong presence in the residential market in Madrid: 18 of its 24 developments are situated in the Community of Madrid. Its most high profile projects are located in Boadilla del Monte, Aravaca and La Tablas, areas where the recovery in the real estate sector and prices is already a reality.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Elena Sanz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Drago Capital Enters Residential Development Segment

29 December 2015 – Cinco Días

Property development is becoming a business opportunity for companies in the real estate sector once  again, following the severe crisis that began in 2008. Even for the least conventional players, such as Drago Capital, an investment fund that normally acquires other kinds of assets like office buildings and commercial premises.

The fund has started to develop a new urbanisation, dubbed Ocean Hills, in the vicinity of Estepona (Málaga) on the Costa del Sol. It represents its first major project targeted at the second home market and the development comprises 62 apartments.

Drago Capital identified the business opportunity in an unfinished development, which it acquired in December 2014, and which it has completely redesigned.

In total, the initial investment amounted to €8 million, which was sourced mainly from a number of family offices, according to the managers of the fund.

Type of apartments

The managers ruled out a development on the beachfront and instead, consider that more value can be obtained inland. The homes are located next to the Monte Selwo park, in a natural environment and with views of the Mediterranean Sea.

62 modern homes will be constructed with a maximum of two bedrooms and all with spacious terraces. Construction will centred around four, three-storey blocks of flats. The marketing of Ocean Hills will be targeted primarily at overseas buyers, mainly in the North of Europe and in the UK. The first part of this urbanisation has already been sold in its entirety to a group of Norwegian citizens.

Project details

The development is being constructed on a plot of land measuring 7,000 m2 and there may be an opportunity to construct new buildings on two adjoining plots, which would add another 7,000 m2.

The contract for the construction work has already been awarded to Avintia, which will complete the construction of the homes and resume the work that was suspended before Drago Capital’s purchase. The homes are expected to be finished by the end of 2016.

Drago Capital considers that the market for second homes, with the characteristics found in this development, has returned and it regards this investment as a good opportunity. Moreover, its managers consider that the Costa del Sol area in general, and both Marbella and Estepona specifically, represent places with significant demand.

Original story: Cinco Días (by A. Simón)

Translation: Carmel Drake