B&B Sells Its Last Hotel in Spain to Miratres for €1.7 Million

13 August 2019

The French hospitality group, B&B, sold its last hotel in Spain to the Miratres family office for 1.7 million euros. The hotel in Oviedo was the firm’s last directly owned property.  Now, B&B is focusing its investment strategy on long-term guaranteed rental contracts.

In this manner, B&B is looking to double its market share in Spain and Portugal from 32 to 64 hotels by 2022. The firm expects to inaugurate fifteen new venues by the end of next year, ten in Spain and another five in Portugal.

Original Story: Eje Prime

Adaptation/Translation: Richard D. K. Turner

 

Bankinter’s Hotel Socimi Atom will Make its MAB Debut with a Valuation of €265.7M

21 November 2018 – Eje Prime

Atom is lining up to make its debut on the stock market. Bankinter’s hotel Socimi will ring the bell soon on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB) with a portfolio comprising 21 assets located all over Spain. The company will make its debut with a valuation of €265.7 million and a share price of €10.60 after the stock market regulator issued a favourable report for its inclusion on the alternative market, scheduled for before the end of the year.

Atom’s main partner is the Melià Group, which operates six of its establishments. In addition, the Socimi has agreements with AC Hotel by Marriott, Eurostars, Ibersol and B&B, amongst other chains.

Twelve of the company’s hotels are vacation properties, and the remaining nine are urban assets; most are four-star establishments. The properties are worth €483.5 million altogether, according to an independent valuation of the portfolio carried out by EY.

In addition to Bankinter, which owns 5.3% of the shares, other shareholders of the management company include Alcor, which controls 5% of the shares; Mistral Iberia Real Estate, with 5.15%; and Línea Directa Aseguradora, with 2%.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Treasury Requires Tourist Rental Platforms to Submit Quarterly Informative Returns

1 March 2018 – Expansión

The Government wants to put a stop to the fraud that is happening in the emerging market for tourist apartments. To this end, it is going to intensify the inspection of companies dedicated to the transfer of use of flats, such as Airbnb, HomeAway, HouseTrip, MyTwinPlace, Only-apartments, IntercambioCasas and Rentalia. For that, it is going to require them all to provide much more information and it will conduct a quarterly control of all of their activities. Through this, it wants to improve the “prevention of tax fraud for people and entities, in particular, the so-called collaborative platforms that mediate the transfer of use of homes for tourist purposes”, according to the draft ministerial order designed to put a stop to these kinds of irregularities, to which Expansión has had access. The text approves the so-called “model 179 informative declaration”, together with the conditions and procedures for presenting the required information before the Treasury.

The measure forms part of the strictest control that the Treasury wants to exercise over intermediaries in a rising sector, such as the tourist rental market, which has experienced a genuine boom in recent years and which now has 513,820 beds, 30% more than the sum of Spain’s hotels, hostels and B&Bs (393,838), according to data from Exceltur.

Until now, some of the main initiatives have been directed at users themselves, such as the warning issued last year by the Tax Authorities to more than 21,500 people that had leased their homes through these platforms, advising them that they must declare the money received in their tax returns.

The Treasury wants to close the door on the lack of transparency surrounding certain tourist rentals, behind which are sometimes even hotel chains, which lease homes through the platforms, and are in turn disguised as private users.

As a result, the ministerial order that the Department of Tax Management at the Tax Authority has prepared, emphasises certain concepts that may seem obvious, such as the importance of identifying the owner of the home or of the right “by virtue of which use of the dwelling is transferred”, if that is different from the rightful owner of the home. Moreover, all of the features of a property must be identified. Together with the general registry information, the specific details of each one of the operations that are carried out must be reported: the number of days during which a client leases the home and the price paid to the owner in exchange for its use.

This new order from the Treasury comes in addition to local legislation from many Town Halls such as those of Barcelona, Madrid and the Balearic Islands, which have proposed “ceilings” to stop the overheating of rental prices that has resulted from the boom of Airbnb and similar platforms. In fact, according to calculations from Urban Data Analytics for this newspaper, the upwards trend from the collaborative economy has caused rental prices to rise by an additional 6% in the Eixample district of Barcelona and by an additional 4% in the Centro district of Madrid in one year. That happens because the properties in question generate double the returns of a long-term rental property “A 40 m2 one-bedroom home in the Puerta del Sol area of Madrid generates €1,513 per month on Airbnb and a traditional rent of €700”, says the company by way of example.

Grace period

(…) This ministerial order (…) will apply to all transfers of homes for tourist purposes that take place on or after 1 January 2018.

The frequency of these returns to the Treasury will be quarterly (they must be submitted during the calendar month following the end of each quarter). But this year, in order to facilitate the process, those corresponding to the first two quarters of 2018 may be submitted up until 31 December 2018. Those corresponding to the third and fourth quarter will have to be submitted before 31 October 2018 and 31 January 2019, respectively (…).

Original story: Expansión (by Juanma Lamet)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Cerquia’s Directors Launch New Hotel Development Company: Xpandia

14 February 2018 – Eje Prime

The managers of Cerquia have set their sights on achieving five stars. Carlos Cercadillo, Javier Pérez Picallo and Jesús Salinero, all senior members of the Spanish company, have teamed up with a group of investors to leap into the hotel sector. The executives have launched Xpandia Projects, a company specialising in hotel development with a focus on Spain and Portugal, according to Pérez Picallo, CEO of Cerquia, speaking to Eje Prime.

Picallo will be in charge of the new project, although he will also continue in his position at Cerquia, as will Cercadillo, who is the President of the company and Salinero, who leads the expansion department.

“The hotels will be urban properties and they will be handed over turnkey-style to the operators”, explains the CEO of the company (…). The objective of the property developer is to hand over 800 rooms over the next three years. For the time being, the company is going to work on three projects, two in Lisbon and one in Valencia. The latter, located on Calle Guillem de Gastro, is on the verge of being granted its licence, with the aim of being completed and ready for delivery in 2020. In the case of the Portuguese assets, the delivery will take place in 2018 and 2019, respectively. In total, these three hotels will place 386 rooms on the market. Some of the major operators for which the firm is going to work include groups such as Accor, Iberostar, Hotusa, Vincci and B&B.

The development of the assets will be undertaken through both the renovation of buildings, as well as the construction of new build properties. The first project in Valencia and one of the projects in Lisbon involve the complete renovation of two properties. In addition, during this first phase, the company has pre-agreements to develop hotels in Madrid, Valencia, Alicante, Sevilla, Málaga, Bilbao and Donostia.

Xpandia is not planning to accumulate assets itself. “We will not hold onto the assets, instead we will sell them to investors who will operate them after we complete the building work”, explains Picallo, adding that “in some cases, we will hand over the hotels completely decorated and furnished”. The only hotel that the new company will own is a property in Lisbon, currently owned by Cerquia, which will be transferred from one portfolio to another. Despite the obvious synergies between the group and the property developer, “this is a project that will operate outside of Cerquia”, said its CEO.

The property developer will work on all stages of the projects from the location and selection of the properties to the drafting of the technical plans and the organisation of the construction work. Location wise, the properties will always “be in cities, primarily in central areas, to respond to the tourist interest that operators demand”, says Picallo. The property developer will study 100 potential projects per year.

The company is not going to work in Barcelona for the time being. Although the Catalan capital is the most touristic city in Spain, the property developer considers that “there is too much uncertainty around obtaining hotel licences in the city” (…).

During this first phase, the hotel operators that Xpandia is working with are expected to invest around €30 million. The hotels that the company is going to develop will be 3- and 4-star properties.

The group driving the project, Cerquia, is a company dedicated to the management and operation of its own real estate assets. The company, created in 2006, has offices, hotels and homes for rent in a portfolio that spans a surface area of approximately 20,000 m2 in the office sector alone across the Iberian Peninsula.

The firm’s clients include companies such as Banco Santander, Uria Menéndez, Garrigues, Catalana Occidente, Hoteles Vincci,  Bausch & Lomb, Intermoney, Worx, Lycamobile and Shine Ibérica, amongst others. For 2018, the group’s roadmap is to maintain its activity and continue with the progress of its three residential developments.

Original story: Eje Prime (by Jabier Izquierdo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Hotel Investors Switch Their Focus To Spain’s Second Cities

20 July 2017 – Expansión

Hotels have become of the star assets of the real estate sector with Socimis and investment funds lining up to buy them. And the forecasts show that these actors are set to consolidate their presence in Spain, gaining ground on the hotel groups – which will continue their commitment to a strategy focused increasingly more on management and less on ownership – and will analyse new secondary locations, in light of price rises and the decreasing yields in prime cities.

According to the Hotel Asset Management 2017 report, prepared by Magma HC, three-star hotels captured the attention of investors last year, given that they represent the most attractive asset for implementing repositioning models and improving prices. Specifically, 38% of the transactions closed in 2016 involved three-star hotels, 28% related to four-star properties, 24% to low-cost establishments and the remaining 9% to five-star hotels.

Albert Grau, Managing Partner at Magma HC, explained yesterday that the transaction market will shift its focus to the holiday segment, over the next few months, due to the (high) value of assets in prime urban destinations, such as Barcelona, Madrid, Málaga, San Sebastián and Palma de Mallorca, which are at levels that compromise their future profitability.

Although in previous years, the urban hotel market was the most sought-after by investors, in 2016, it accounted for just 33% of operations, whereas the holiday segment increased to account for 66% of the total. “Prices in cities such as Madrid and Barcelona have peaked, and purchases to generate wealth or profitability are complicated given the numbers”, said Grau.

By contrast, he considers that Spain’s secondary cities offer “great opportunities” for investors thanks to the significant potential that they hold and the fact that there are well-located assets there at “very attractive” prices.

However, the partner at Magma HC considers that the sector is a long way from a bubble, thanks to the greater professionalisation and the new requirements in terms of indebtedness levels.

Moreover, the report highlights that the Spanish hotel sector can expect to see new operations between hotel groups, such as between Starwood and Marriott, Fairmont and Grupo Accord and the purchase of Sidorme by B&B Hotels.

Commitment to rent

In terms of the business model, the most popular formula is still rental. Grau underlines that, given the strong performance of the market, owners who took the decision to bet on variable rentals are now receiving greater returns. In addition, the partner at Magma HC believes that the period of rent renegotiations, seen in previous years, is now over.

According to Magma HC’s report, hotel groups own 37% of their assets, lease 33% of them, manage 18% and operate 13% as franchises.

Grau explains that “more Anglo-Saxon” operations – management and franchising – are not growing, but continue to have a specific weight in the market and there is a growing trend to adopt them increasingly more, in line with international standards.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

French Chain B&B Opens 4 Hotels In Spain

8 July 2016 – Expansión

The French hotel chain B&B, one of the largest in Europe with a network of 321 establishments and annual revenues of €344 million, has started to expand its business into Spain. A few months ago, it opened its first four hotels here, all of which used to be owned by the Holiday Inn, in Valencia, Madrid, Alicante and Gerona, for a total investment of €14 million. It plans to open at least four hotels a year between now and 2020, with an average investment of around €5 million per property, which represents a total investment of approximately €80 million over the period.

The next hotel opening will be in Vigo, planned for December. B&B, which was acquired by PAI Partners in December, is establishing itself under two systems: the construction of buildings and the acquisition of existing hotels. The four Spanish hotels, which used to house Holiday Inns, were acquired and then transferred to the firm Foncier des Murs, owned by the Crédit Agricole group, which is the company’s financial partner for these types of investments and which itself owns 250 hotels that B&B operates.

The hotel in Vigo will follow the same pattern; meanwhile the company is looking for other opportunities to buy and construct hotels. The Director of B&B in Spain, Dennis Darrien, explained that the company has plans to construct one hotel in Barcelona, in the 22@ district, but that those plans are on hold due to the hotel moratorium established by the Town Hall.

The company is looking for hotels with between 80 and 150 rooms, in good locations.

B&B was created in 1990, as a chain for business travellers in France – where it now has 250 hotels, some of which it owns and others which it leases – with low cost prices. The CEO of the Group, George Sampeur, explained that in Spain they will also target the tourist market, given the nature of the country.

The company has eighty hotels in Germany, twenty-three in Italy, three in Poland, one in the Czech Republic and another in Morocco. It plans to expand to Latin America by opening its first hotel in Brazil, in Sao Paulo, before continuing to Curitiba and other areas in the south of the country.

In total, according to its business plan, B&B plans to open thirty hotels a year between now and 2020.

Original story: Expansión (by J. Brines)

Translation: Carmel Drake