Tag: beds

Grupo El Castillo Buys the ‘Villa Universitaria’ Hall of Residence in Alicante for €19.7M

17 December 2018 – Eje Prime

The Villa Universitaria hall of residence in Alicante has been awarded to Grupo El Castillo. The Alicante-based company has won the bid for this university complex with an offer amounting to €19.7 million. The Valencian consultancy firm VEO Comunicación has also participated in the process.

The asset has a surface area of 17,000 m2 and contains 400 rooms. It is the largest hall of residence for students in Alicante and it was initially valued at €19.6 million, according to reports from Expansión.

After three years on the market and initial offers that barely amounted to €8 million, the property was owned by the Santa Anna real estate group, a company that filed for liquidation in 2016, and from which a portfolio of 450 properties was auctioned in November for €32 million.

In the first public sales process to be conducted online, closed without success, the parties interested in Villa Universitaria included Sabadell, Sareb and the Reciprocal Guarantee Company of the Community of Valencia.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Temprano Capital Partners Acquires Plot in Sevilla for Student Halls

5 December 2018 – Press Release

During November 2018, Temprano Capital Partners, in a joint venture with CPA®:18 – Global and Helena Rivero, acquired a prime, city centre site in Sevilla to undertake the development of a premium student residence, to form part of the TSL programme in Iberia.

TSL is currently developing 5 projects in Spain and 3 in Portugal, together with the residence in Marques de Pombal, Lisbon, which was inaugurated in January this year. The TSL programme now amounts to 3,500 beds in Iberia.

The City of Sevilla is renowned, internationally, for its unique university atmosphere, with over 80,000 full-time students, approximately 4% of whom are from outside of Spain, a percentage that is increasing annually, given the popularity of interchange programmes, such as Erasmus and European funding initiatives.

Sevilla houses multiple further education facilities, with faculties spread throughout the city centre, including the University of Sevilla, University Pablo Olavide, the International University of Andalucía UNIA Cartuja, University Loyola Andalucía and CEU San Pablo Andalucía Bormujos, in addition to multiple language academies and institutes, such as the Spanish American Institute. Sevilla has a prestigious international status, offering a wide range of courses, and qualifications in all fields of study.

Sevilla also offers students a unique, historic environment with rich culture and multiple leisure and sports options. The site acquired is located on Calle Genaro Parlade to the south of the city centre in the “El Porvenir” neighbourhood. This area of the city is exceptionally well located for students with respect to the city centre and main university campuses – by foot, by bicycle or by public transport. The site was previously used by the Antares Sports and Social Club, which recently relocated to modern facilities in central Seville. The proposed project will result in a significant urban regeneration for both the local neighborhood and the City of Sevilla.

The project, which is currently in the design phase, will provide 505 premium studios in a building measuring 15,200 sqm. The studios will be delivered with high-quality designs and finishes, with fully fitted in-room kitchens; individual, ensuite bathrooms; high speed WI-FI connections and televisions. Furthermore, the Project will offer multiple services and on-site amenities such as a fully equipped gymnasium, swimming pool, lounge, party rooms, cinema, laundry, library and study rooms. Extensive exterior areas for the students along with 24/7 concierge service are also envisaged and all included in the rent (…).

Temprano Capital Partners (Temprano) is a private European real estate investor and developer created in 2013. It is led by Neil Jones and James Preston and its current tactical focus is the Iberian market (Spain & Portugal) (…).

Original story: Press Release

Edited by: Carmel Drake

Bankinter Creates a Fund to Invest €400M in Student Halls

19 November 2018 – Real Estate Press

Bankinter has launched a venture capital fund that is going to invest €400 million in the promotion of student halls in the main university cities across Spain and Portugal. The fund is called ‘Fondo V Student Iberia’ and is going to be managed by Plenium Partners. To date, it has acquired a plot in Granada and it plans to buy more land in Valencia and Porto.

The fund has an initial capital fund of €150 million, and although it was created with the idea of giving the option for the entity’s private banking clients to invest upwards of €200,000, Bankinter itself has contributed €10 million. In addition, the US real estate manager Valeo – which owns more than 75,000 beds in student halls and nursing homes, primarily in the USA, contributed another €4 million and Plenium Partners, €1.5 million.

From there, “Fondo V Student Iberia” established its main hypotheses, which include the construction within a period of 2 years and the launch and operation a year later of at least four university residences containing 2,500 beds in total, in which it is going to invest up to €200 million.

With that objective in mind, it has already carried out its first acquisition, the purchase of a plot of land in Granada for which it has paid €8.8 million. It calculates that it is going to invest €41.3 million in total to build a 5-storey student residence containing 519 beds there, which will open its doors in September 2020.

Moreover, it is negotiating other alternatives to grow to almost 2,500 beds in the near future and has identified different opportunities to expand its portfolio to 9,000 beds.

The group is seeking to expand initially in the Iberian market, through the development, construction, execution and management of residential assets for students, primarily in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Granada, Sevilla, Málaga, Lisbon and Porto.

The aim is to constitute a portfolio of assets that generate “predictable and recurrent” annual income in the hands of managing partners with proven experience, explains the document.

In this way, Bankinter is continuing its strategy of investing in alternative funds, after launching Helia, a venture capital fund that invests in renewable energy, and launching onto the market the Socimis Ores with commercial properties and Atom with hotels.

But now, it has placed its focus on university residences because Spain has 1.6 million students in total, close to the historical maximum, and also because it is one of the main destinations for international university students (and the top destination for those participating in Erasmus).

It is considered to be a sector with stable and growing demand; and it is estimated that between approximately 400,000 and 470,000 students are looking for accommodation. Moreover, a potential increase is expected in the student population in Spain and of Asian students, especially from China and India, where they have a lower presence than in other European countries such as Italy, Germany and France.

All of this will help the internationalisation strategy of the Spanish universities and the aim of obtaining value from the fact that Spanish is the second most widely spoken language in the world, with 400 million speakers.

Original story: Real Estate Press

Translation: Carmel Drake

Proa Capital Sells Hospital de Llevant to Caser

15 November 2018 – Expansión

Proa Capital is stepping on the sales accelerator in 2018. The private equity manager has completed its fourth divestment of the year: Hospital de Llevant. According to financial sources, the fund – which exerted control over the asset with 70% of the share capital – and the other minority shareholders have sold the medical centre to Caser. The insurance group is strengthening its network of own hospitals through this acquisition.

Market calculations indicate that the transaction valued the company at around €30 million, which represents around 10 times its forecast EBITDA for this year of c. €3 million. The centre’s revenues amount to around €20 million.

Proa became the owner of the centre located in Mallorca in 2013. At that time, Hospital de Llevant targeted the care market for the elderly, focusing particularly on residents from overseas. Since then, Proa – in partnership with the management team, some of whom are also shareholders – has promoted the hospital aspect of the centre. The fund announced that it had completed its mission a few months ago and that it, therefore, considered that it was time to exit.

Now, in an industrial investor, it has found the appropriate replacement owner. For Caser, the purchase fits with the group’s objectives, which a decade ago committed to building a network of own centres for its hospital division as part of its diversification strategy.

Hospital de Llevant will thereby be incorporated into a group that already comprises five other centres, located on the Canary Islands and in Extremadura, and which operate under the brand Hospitales Parque, according to information from Caser. The insurance company also has a section specialising in geriatrics, Caser Residencial, through which it operates 16 nursing homes for the elderly.

Accounting to the sources, the intention is for the current directors of the hospital in Mallorca to continue to lead the centre, which currently employs a workforce of 170 and offers 140 beds, split into equal parts between hospital care and care for the elderly. It also has three operating theatres and an intensive care unit.

Original story: Expansión (by M. Ponce de León)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Solvia Sells 3 Hospitals Leased to Quirón for c. €200M

31 October 2018 – Eje Prime

Solvia is making cash with its real estate portfolio. The servicer of Banco Sabadell has sold three buildings in Barcelona, Bilbao and San Sebastián, which are all leased to the hospital group Quirón. The operation has been signed with a domestic investor, whose name has not been revealed. Moreover, the consideration paid for the assets has not been disclosed either.

Owned by the German giant Fresenius, Quirón has long-term rental contracts for these three properties. Solvia said that there has been a lot of interest in the operation from players both at home and overseas.

Hospital Quirón Barcelona is located just five kilometres from the centre of the Catalan capital. The property, constructed in 2006, was renovated in 2017 and contains 187 beds in total.

Hospital Quirón Vizcaya, meanwhile, is located in the town of Erandio, ten kilometres from the centre of Bilbao. That building is home to 110 beds.

Finally, Hospital Quirón San Sebastián (pictured above) forms part of a former palace dating back to 1936 and, subsequently, was converted into a hospital comprising a complex of three buildings. That hospital is located just two kilometres from the centre of the city and has 60 beds in total.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Portugal’s Largest Hotel Group Opens its First Establishment in Madrid

10 October 2018 – Inmodiario

Pestana Hotel Group, Portugal’s largest multinational hotel group, has today unveiled Hotel Pestana Plaza Mayor – one of two projects that the company is developing in Madrid – which will be inaugurated at the beginning of next year as part of its Collection group, the most exclusive brand comprising luxurious and monumental buildings in premium locations.

This opening is the result of a strategic commitment by the group to various European capitals. According to José Roquette, Chief Development Officer at the Pestana Group, “Over the next five years, we are going to be strengthening the position of the Pestana brand as an international chain in the major global markets, always on a par with our leadership in Portugal. The opening of Pestana Plaza Mayor, the group’s first hotel in Madrid, represents a very important step in the realisation of our strategy. We are convinced that, even though it is a very competitive market, we will be able to establish ourselves thanks to our firm commitment to quality”.

The Pestana Group, founded in 1972, operates in 15 countries with almost 100 hotels, which receive more than 3 million tourists. It has extensive experience in hotel management in historical buildings, including through the network of Pousadas de Portugal (the equivalent of the network of Paradores in Spain).

Located in Plaza Mayor, in the heart of the Madrilenian capital, Pestana Plaza Mayor will comprise two historical buildings – the Casa de la Carnicería (subsequently the Third Town Hall and then the Municipal Newspaper Library) and the former Fire Station. The Pestana Hotel Group’s new hotel will involve an investment of €11 million and will contain 87 rooms, decorated in a contemporary style that respects its urban and historical location (…).

In addition to a cafeteria and bar, Pestana Plaza Mayor will have a restaurant in the hotel’s cloisters and an indoor spa with a swimming pool, all in the historical heart of Madrid.

Pestana Plaza Mayor expects to open to the public during the first quarter of 2019 (…).

Original story: Inmodiario

Translation: Carmel Drake

Beds for Tourists on Costa del Sol Grew by Almost 20% during YTD August

10 October 2018 – Diario Sur

At a time when international tourism demand is cooling, the supply of beds in regulated tourist accommodation, in other words, in hotels, apartments, campsites, country houses and tourists apartments, grew by almost 20%  in Málaga during the 8 months to August, according to a report about the Tourist Situation on the Costa del Sol. Behind this significant increase is the boost from holiday rental homes, which caused the volume of establishments to skyrocket by almost 50% during the first eight months of the year. In other words, during this period, 9,500 new businesses to house tourists have been put on the market, which have added 52,431 beds so far this year. With this rise, the Costa del Sol now has the capacity to accommodate 321,374 visitors each day, whilst in August 2017, that figure amounted to 291,000.

These figures warn of a greater dynamism in the registration of properties destined to travellers during the peak months of the summer. And a report compiled by Costa del Sol Tourism about the evolution of the supply of accommodation in that destination shows that during the six months to June, the number of beds grew by 10% and the number of businesses grew by 25%. The destination ended the first half of the year with a supply of 26,424 tourist establishments with the capacity to house 308,288 visitors. Sources at Costa del Sol Tourism highlight that, during that period, the highest growth in beds was seen in rental homes dedicated to tourists, which saw an increase of 26,154 beds to reach a total of 112,294, up by 30.4%. They were followed by rural houses, with 1,744 new beds taking the total supply to 12,952, up by 15.6%; and apartments, with 1,002 new beds out of a total of 58,670 on offer, up by 2%.

The boom in holiday rentals has resulted in a complete transformation of the supply of accommodation along the Costa del Sol, in such a way that, nowadays, tourist homes account for the highest volume of beds, followed by hotels and apartments, accounting for 36.4%, 29.5% and 19%, respectively. The Director-General of Costa del Sol Tourism, Arturo Bernal, highlighted that holiday rentals “are a reality of the tourist sector that we must strengthen ties with”, urging people to work towards full regulation of the whole accommodation supply and to offer high-quality accommodation.

Original story: Diario Sur (by Pilar Martínez)

Translation: Carmel Drake

BNP Paribas: Spain’s Hall of Residence Market Will Grow by 4% in 2019

16 July 2018 – Eje Prime

(…). With 1,148 accommodation centres for university students located all over the country, split between halls of residences (963) and residential colleges (185), the domestic market comprised 93,500 beds at the end of 2017. Nevertheless, that supply “is small compared with current demand”, explains BNP Paribas Real Estate in a report to which Eje Prime has had access. For this reason, the international consultancy firm forecasts that this alternative market will grow by 4% in Spain in 2019.

In recent years, the sub-sector has recorded some major operations involving the sale of both assets and companies. The most important deal came at the end of 2017, when AXA Real Assets and CBRE Global Investment Partners invested almost €400 million in the purchase of the entire portfolio of Resa, the vehicle specialising in student halls previously owned by Lazora. Following the operation, the manager Greystar became the king of the halls in Spain with 37 assets under ownership (four of which were being developed). In total, more than 9,000 beds changed hands.

Resa’s sale is nothing more than a consequence of the current investor appetite, primarily from international funds, many of which specialise in this sector. In 2017 alone, fourteen student halls opened their doors, adding 2,149 new beds to the sector. Moreover, since this is a very fragmented market with many owners, we are seeing the purchase of large bundles of beds, which the new players arriving in Spain are using to initiate their expansion plans.

Such is the case of Corestate, an investment fund headquartered in Luxembourg, which purchased a former residence, containing 260 rooms and 302 beds, in Madrid in 2016 to renovate the building and give it its personal stamp. With support from Villar Mir, the company disbursed €40 million on that project. A year earlier, the Dutch company The Student Hotel paid the same amount for two halls of residence in Barcelona (Melon District Marina and Melon District Poblesec) containing 600 rooms in total.

Those operations led by international funds show the influence that foreign capital has and, above all, is going to have, in the student hall sector. A large part of this interest in the domestic market stems from Erasmus. Spain is the most sought-after country by university students, ahead of Germany, the United Kingdom and France. Two years ago, 45,813 young people arrived in the country, including Erasmus and international students on secondments, and all of them needed to find a bed for the year.

Geographical dispersion

Another one of the major attractions of the student hall market in Spain is its geographical dispersion. It is not only Madrid and Barcelona that are attractive: Málaga, Valencia, Sevilla, Salamanca and Granada are all cities with a large influx of students, many of them international, arriving every year.

Madrid is the city with the largest supply of rooms for students, with 21,159 beds in 198 centres at the end of 2017. That figure accounts for 23% of the total stock on the market in Spain (…). Cataluña was ranked in second place (…) with 170 centres and 14,177 beds, accounting for 14% of the stock. It was followed by Castilla y León (where Salamanca plays an important role) and Andalucía, with shares of 14% and 12%, respectively (…).

Activity is spreading to the north too. Just last week, the fund WP Carey paid €10 million to buy an office building in San Sebastián from Solvia, which it is going to convert into a hall of residence for students (…).

Original story: Eje Prime (by Jabier Izquierdo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Equilis Invests €120M in a Commercial Complex in Esplugues

27 June 2018 – El Mundo

The Belgian real estate firm Equilis is finalising a new shopping centre in Esplugues de Llobregat, which is expected to be inaugurated in November; 90% of the stores in the complex have already been commercialised. The centre, which has received investment of €120 million and which has employed 1,000 people for its construction, will receive up to 8 million visitors per year and will create 500 more jobs once it begins operation, according to forecasts prepared by the company.

The macro-project from the company controlled by the Mestdagh family is a first step in its expansion in Spain, where it expects to begin six projects with a value of €750 million over the next few years, two of which will be in Cataluña, which will receive investment of €200 million – including Esplugues – and four in the rest of the country.

Finestrelles Shopping Center, as the commercial complex in Esplugues is known, is located in the Ca n’Oliveres sector, in the neighbourhood of Can Vidalet, on the plot that exists between Calles Laureà Miró and Sant Mateu. It will have two tunnels that will connect the space with Ronda de Dalt and la Avenida Diagonal.

The surface area of the complex will span 40,000 m2, distributed over five floors, two of which will be dedicated to parking and the rest for commercial use. The centre will contain 110 stores as well as a hall of residence for students with almost 375 beds and a hypermarket. “For the time being, there won’t be any cinemas, but we are not ruling that out”, said Víctor Gómez (pictured above), CEO of the company in Spain.

Original story: El Mundo 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Corestate Finalises More Land Purchases in Spain

25 June 2018 – Eje Prime

Corestate wants its share of the student resident cake in Spain. The Luxembourg-based fund manager is finalising the purchase of new plots of land in the country, at the same time as it is starting to search for new opportunities in Portugal, according to explanations provided by the company’s most senior executive in Spain, Christopher Hütwohl. Corestate’s objective is to be ranked as one of the Top 3 operators in the sector by 2020.

The group is whereby seeking to fight off competition from companies such as Greystar, currently number one in the sector by number of beds following its acquisition together with Axa Real Assets and CBRE Global Investment Partners of Resa’s portfolio (formed by 37 assets) for €500 million. Another prominent operator is GSA, which acquired RIO’s portfolio for €180 million.

Corestate, which managed assets worth €22 billion at the end of the first quarter, is now launching new land acquisitions to build halls of residence for students, which will be added to the 206 beds that it is going to open in the Madrilenian district of Moncloa in September and the more than 300 that it will incorporate in Sevilla following the purchase of a plot of land in May.

According to Hütwohl, the company is currently finalising the acquisition of another plot on which it will build 400 beds and is “analysing four more plots” for 700 beds. Thus, Corestate’s plans include closing 2018 with more than 200 beds in Madrid and reaching 1,000 beds by 2020, which, according to Hütwohl “would place us as one off the Top three players in Spain”.

In parallel, the company has started to analyse its entry into Portugal with its business model. According to the head of Corestate, the fund is looking for opportunities in cities such as Lisbon, Porto and Aveiro.

The company is looking for plots on which to build with sizes that depend on the sizes of the halls of residence that they want to build, provided they are located in university cities. Nevertheless, Hütwohl warns that the “minimum size to achieve efficient management is 200 beds”.

“The student residence sector is becoming increasingly more competitive in Spain and we do not want to miss out on the opportunity and the advantage that our international knowledge affords us”, says the group’s executive in Spain (…).

Original story: Eje Prime (by P. Riaño)

Translation: Carmel Drake