Tag: British fund

British Fund Behind Purchase of Benidorm’s Kronos Building for €20M

21 March 2018 – Alicante Plaza

A British fund is behind the purchase of most of the apartments in the Kronos building in Benidorm. According to local sources, of the more than 150 homes that are owned by Sareb, 136 are going to be taken over by a British fund. The operation is worth more than €20 million and just needs to be signed, something that should happen within the coming days.

As Alicante Plaza published on Tuesday, the so-called “bad bank” has managed to sell the properties that it owned in the city’s skyscraper in just one year. Around 20 homes have been sold to individuals, whilst the remainder will end up in the hands of a British fund.

But that is not the full story. It would seem that, at the end of last year, Sareb sold the storerooms and garages that it also owned in the building, the fifth highest skyscraper in Benidorm, and one of the tallest in Spain.

The tower has 41 storeys and was conceived as a luxury residential property: the structure occupies less than 20% of the plot. The remainder is used for common areas and recreation with two swimming pools, one for adults and one for children, a gym, a football pitch, padel and tennis courts, as well as extensive green areas.

The building was constructed by the Valencian property developer Grupo García Ojeda in 2005, and the keys were handed over three years later. But the crisis hit the sale of the apartments and ten years later almost all of the flats were still on the market

In this way, Sareb is getting rid of one of the skyscrapers that was hit the hardest by the “bursting” of the real estate bubble. It is worth remembering that Sareb rescued nine savings banks, including properties and loans to property developers. The latter was an operation that saw the skyscraper awarded to the “bad bank, whose debt used to belong to one of the companies owned by Grupo García Ojeda. Kronos has more than one link to Valencia, given that it was designed by the architecture firm MAPRC, which is also from that city.

Original story: Alicante Plaza (by Alba Mercader)

Translation: Carmel Drake

GreenOak Buys Vallsolana Garden Business Park For €25M

31 March 2017 – Cinco Días

The US fund GreenOak is continuing its commitment to the Spanish real estate sector with another acquisition. It has just closed the purchase of the Vallsolana Garden Business Park, located in Sant Cugat del Vallès (Barcelona) from the Swiss entity UBS for €25 million, according to market sources. The operation has been advised by Cushman & Wakefield.

The complex has a surface area of almost 20,000 m2, spread over two office buildings. Each one of the independent properties has four floors. The facilities house the headquarters of companies such as Adidas, Everis and Eurofragance.

GreenOak will add these offices to its ever-growing portfolio in Spain. Last year, the fund purchased four buildings in the Avalon business park, on the Julián Camarillo industrial estate in Madrid from Santander.

Nevertheless, to date, its only major acquisition in a single operation was made last year when it acquired the Las Mercedes business mega-complex, next to Barajas airport. That park has a surface area of 78,000 m2 and comprises nine buildings. In that case, it paid around €140 million to Standard Life, according to sources in the sector.

GreenOak is also preparing to launch its second real estate specific fund in Spain, with an expected investment capacity of around €900 million.

The building in Sant Cugat includes services such as padel courts, a gym, a games room, an auditorium and a lounge. In addition, the business park has around 400 parking spaces. The site’s currently occupancy rate stands at 80%, according to sources in the sector.

The business park is located in one of the most powerful business centres in Barcelona, in the city of San Cugat, which attracts numerous companies.

Original story: Cinco Días (by Alfonso Simón Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake