Tag: Baker & McKenzie

Onix Capital Buys Former ‘Páginas Amarillas’ HQ In Madrid

21 November 2017 – Expansión

The firm Onix Capital, in which several wealthy South American families own a stake, has reached an agreement with the former owners of the company to purchase the building, located on Avenida de Manoteras in Madrid.

Another office building in Madrid has changed hands. In this case, the star is a property located on Avenida de Manoteras, in the north of the capital, which, until just a few days ago, was home to the corporate headquarters of Páginas Amarillas (the Yellow Pages) in Spain.

The building used to be owned by the fund Hibu Connect, which sold the company that created the famous yellow coloured telephone directory in May (it now specialises in advising SMEs) to the firms Metric Capital Partners and Evolvere Capital. Following that corporate operation, the owners held onto the property, but they have sold it to a new owner six months on.

The architect of the purchase has been the firm Onix Capital Partners. “We are a group specialising in the real estate sector, with 30 years of experience in Argentina”, explained Martín Kielmanowicz, Vice-President of Onix Capital Partners. Our investors are Latin American families, above all from Argentina, and institutional groups (…).

In fact, the Páginas Amarillas building is the third purchase that this group of investors has made in Spain. Its first operation involved the acquisition of Edificio Montepríncipe, located next to Santander’s Ciudad Financiera, in Boadilla del Monte (Madrid). For that property, which is leased to the financial institution to house its IT services, Onix paid almost €80 million. Last year, the investor group also reached an agreement with Allegra Holding, the investment arm of the Losantos family, to purchase HP’s headquarters in Las Rozas.

“At the beginning, we focused on core properties, with long-term lease contracts and good tenants but, with such intense competition for those kinds of assets, we have now branched out to look at new options”, explained Kielmanowicz.

In this way, the Páginas Amarillas building appeared on the firm’s radar. It is one of the most well-recognised properties in the area thanks to its original design. Its surface area spans 12,000 m2 and it has 200 parking spaces. “The property is currently spread over five floors, but following the renovation, we hope to increase the height and extend the space to 13,000 m2”, said the Vice-President of Onix.

Following the completion of the purchase last week, the employees of Páginas Amarillas have now left the property, which will be renovated in its entirety to attract a new tenant. To this end, the Argentinian manager has engaged the architecture studio B720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos, which will take care of the complete refit of the building (…).

The renovation of the property will begin before the end of the year, with the aim of putting it on the market at the beginning of 2019. Onix will invest €35 million in total on the purchase and the renovation (…). “Behind the investment are five Latin American families and the Onix management team also holds a percentage stake”, he added.

The firms JLL, Knight Frank, Baker Mckenzie and Uría Menéndez have all participated as advisors to the operation.

Original story: Expansión (by Rocío Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Ibercaja Outsources Its RE Management To Aktua

3 February 2016 – Expansión

Yesterday, the Aragonese group Ibercaja signed an agreement to outsource the management of its real estate assets to Aktua.

The platform, which is owned by the US fund Centerbridge, has itself been up for sale since the end of 2015. Altamira is one of the favourites in the running to acquire it.

The operation signed by Ibercaja is the first of its kind in the Spanish banking sector since 2013, when the large entities, such as Santander, CaixaBank, Bankia and Popular all sold their real estate platforms under management contracts lasting around ten years.

Those operations allowed the Spanish banks to raise capital in exchange for ceding future commissions, and transferring the administration and sale of their assets to specialist firms. Those deals allowed them to focus on their strategic business, namely: to grant loans and take deposits.

“This operation, which is going to have a positive impact on the income statement of Ibercaja Banco, aims to establish a stable partnership with a prestigious industrial partner, to strengthen the entity’s strategy of boosting the sale of its real estate assets through the retail channel and simplifying and optimising its structure in the real estate sector”, said Ibercaja in a statement.

With this operation, the financial group takes a step closer towards its future debut on the stock market in the medium term. This comes after the sale of the majority if its bad real estate loans to Oaktree last year.

Ibercaja has been advised in this process by N+1 and Baker & McKenzie, and Aktua has been advised by KPMG, as its financial and legal advisor.

Original story: Expansión (by Jorge Zuloaga)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Only 490 Homes Sold In Exchange For “Express Visas”

17 February 2015 – El Mundo

The Government has raised €369 million in 15 months from its offer to grant residency to those buying property for more than €500,000.

Spain does not attract as many foreigners as Portugal does through its program.

The controversial express visas that the Government introduced through the Entrepreneurs Act, in order to raise foreign capital, have only attracted 530 international investors in the 15 months since the legislation came into effect, according to data provided by the Secretary of State for Trade. The millionaires that have moved to Spain in exchange for a residency permit have invested only €446.8 million, of which only €369.7 million has been spent on house purchases.

These figures are much lower than those recorded in Portugal for its golden visa program. The neighbouring country has managed to secure more than €1,100 million for the 1,649 golden visas that it has granted (figures to November 2014).

Given the limited interest from the very investors that the Government sought to attract by granting them permanent residency in an EU country, and given the suspicion with which the European Parliament views these types of programs, the Government is preparing rules for the enforcement of this legislation which, amongst other things, will give more guarantees to investors.

The so-called golden visas were approved, not without controversy, in the summer of 2013 as part of the Entrepreneurs Act. The idea of the Executive was to attract foreign investment through these permits and whereby reduce the huge stock of housing in Spain. As a result, it was decided that residency permits would be granted to those investors buying properties worth more than €500,000 (excluding taxes) and those deciding to invest significant quantities in Spanish company shares, domestic bank deposits, public debt or any other general interest project.

A year and three months after the Act came into force, the program has only facilitated the sale of 490 properties (out of a total of 830,000 properties sold during this period), according to the National Institute of Statistics (el Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas or INE) and investors have been incentivised to close only 29 transactions to purchase shares and another 12 transactions of general interest, according to data from the Secretariat that reports to the Ministry of the Economy.

Portugal has had more success with these visas and the key reason for this lies in the fine print of the legislation, which is more favourable for investors. “In Spain, we grant residency in exchange for investment, rather than nationality for investment like in other countries. Moreover, in Portugal, it is possible to become a citizen once you are a permanent resident. By contrast, in Spain, permanent residency only lasts for two years, rather than five years, which means that documentation must be renewed and residency justified on a more frequent basis”, explains Pamela Mafuz, Associate in Employment at Baker & McKenzie.

However, Portugal’s first-mover advantage is also behind its success. “Portugal was able to get ahead and be one of the first to implement this policy and that always has a positive influence” says Borja Ortega, Director of Private Wealth at JLL.

Whilst in other countries, such as Malta, there has been a lot of overseas publicity about the existence of the programs to grant visas to rich people, the Spanish Government has barely promoted its initiative, partly for fear of controversy.

Most of the beneficiaries of the visas granted to date are Russian and Chinese citizens. But, Baker & McKenzie report that their office also receives lots of questions from investors interested in these visas from the Persian Gulf, Egypt and Jordan.

“Many Latin-American investors are also interested in purchasing property (in Spain), due to the special bond that they have with the country. But, for them the visa is usually a secondary consideration because they tend to have other means of obtaining residency”, says Margarita Fernández, also an Associate at Baker & McKenzie.

Just like with the large funds, the majority of the investors seeking golden visas want to buy homes in big cities. “Housing is in highest demand. Specifically, single family homes and in terms of location, the region of Madrid is clearly the preferred destination”, says Ortega.

Original story: El Mundo (by María Vega)

Translation: Carmel Drake