Union Investment Sells Pórtico Building in Madrid to a French Fund

19 July 2018 – Eje Prime

International operation in the office market in Madrid. The German fund Union Investment has sold the Pórtico building to a leading French investment company. The price of the operation has not been revealed, but it exceeded the valuation.

The building, located at number 2 Calle Mahonia, in the Campo de las Naciones area, spans a surface area of 21,000 m2 spread over seven storeys. Moreover, the asset has 413 parking spaces. The operation has been advised by CBRE.

The tenants of the property, which used to be the headquarters of Marsans for several years, include the cruise company Pullmantur and the liquor company Beam Suntory. The building is almost completely occupied, according to details provided by the last owners, who were asking €130 million for the asset when they put it on the market in January.

Pórtico, designed by the architects SOM and Rafael de La-Hoz, was constructed in 2005 and has formed part of Union Investment’s real estate portfolio since 2008. The asset was included in the group’s Unilmo: Deutschland portfolio.

The operation represents the end of Unilmo: Deutschland’s investments in Spain. Nevertheless, Union Investment is continuing to analyse the commercial property market in Madrid for possible new purchases.

Not in vain, at the beginning of the year, the German fund acquired a commercial asset on central Calle Fuencarral in the Spanish capital. Union Investment also owns two offices buildings in Spain and a hotel in Barcelona, which together have a combined value of approximately €190 million.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Realia Negotiates Sale Of Los Cubos Building For €55M

7 September 2017 – Eje Prime

Realia, the real estate company owned by Carlos Slim, is on the verge of signing a new operation in Madrid. The Mexican magnate’s company is negotiating with Therus Invest to sell the Los Cubos office building for €55 million.

The fund, led by Olivier Crambade, specialises in value-added operations, as well as in the renovation and repositioning of buildings that have already been constructed, according to El Confidencial.

The property has a gross leasable area of 18,324 m2 and 334 parking spaces. The asset, which is completely ready to operate as an office, has been vacant for two years.

Last autumn, Therus completed the sale of Project Helios to the Socimi Hispania. That project comprises office buildings in the Madrilenian district of Campo de las Naciones, for which the group paid €32 million.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

UBS Buys Office Building In Madrid For €38.5M

31 July 2017 – Eje Prime

UBS Asset Management has acquired a new asset in Spain. Through its Real Estate & Private Markets (REPM) division, the investment arm of the Swiss bank has completed the purchase of the business complex located at number 56 on Calle Ribera del Loira, in the Campo de las Naciones office district, alongside the Ifema exhibition halls. UBS’s real estate fund has disbursed €38.5 million for the asset.

The building acquired by UBS has a surface area of 11,549 m2, divided into two buildings, separated by a central atrium. Moreover, it has more than 300 parking spaces. The complex houses the headquarters of the hotel group Accor and the dental clinic company Dentix.

The Ribera del Loira operation comes just a month after the Swiss bank’s most recent investment in Madrid when UBS Asset Management purchased two logistics assets spanning almost 35,000 m2 located on the PP10 industrial estate in Leganés. It paid just over €35 million for those properties.

The Swiss bank arrived in Spain with its real estate investment arm. Through seven investment funds, UBS owns a portfolio worth €772 million containing mainly offices, which account for around 50% of the portfolio, as well as retail assets (which represent 37% of the total) and logistics properties.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Duro Felguera Puts Its Non-Core Properties Up For Sale

4 November 2016 – Expansión

Liquidity crisis / The engineering group has two large corporate headquarters in Madrid and Gijón, which it is looking to sell to cover its financial commitments whilst it resolves several legal disputes overseas.

Duro Felguera explained yesterday during the presentation of its results for the 9 months to September 2016 that it has ordered the sale of its “non-productive assets” to avoid the deterioration of its cash balance whilst it resolves legal disputes overseas for unpaid invoices amounting to more than €300 million. According to the sources consulted, the assets under analysis include the company’s two major headquarters in Madrid and Gijón, the proceeds from which could amount to several tens of millions of euros.

For the time being, the company has issued a sales mandate but has not specified which formula it will use for the divestment. In recent years, many of Spain’s large corporations have sold their headquarters through sale and leaseback contracts, whereby the company sells the property but remains as the tenant for a certain number of years. Ferrovial, Acciona, Prisa, Telefónica, Santander, Gas Natural and Endesa, amongst others, have all used this formula in recent years.

Duro Felguera’s office building in Madrid has been on the company’s balance sheet for two years, after it acquired it for €20 million in 2014. The previous owner was the real estate company GMP. The headquarters is located on Vía de los Poblados, in the north of Madrid, alongside the M-40 ring road and the Campo de las Naciones business park.

Duro Felguera’s headquarters in Madrid has a useful surface area of 13,791 m2. It is an eight-storey building – five of the floors are used for offices, two are used for parking and one contains an undercover space for storage and other facilities.

In Gijón, the company chaired by Ángel Antonio del Valle owns of one of the best complexes in the city’s Scientific and Technological Park. That building has a surface area of more than 9,000 m2.

Legal disputes

Duro Felguera will have to use the proceeds from its divestments to cover several urgent obligations. In December, for example, the company is due to repay a loan amounting to €35 million.

In parallel, the group is looking to encompass its financial commitments into the process of recovering its unpaid invoices overseas. Yesterday, the company stated that “it is holding negotiations with various credit institutions (Bankia, Santander, Popular, BBVA, Sabadell and CaixaBank) to adjust the maturity dates of its debt to bring them in line with the expected resolution dates of these conflicts.

In Australia, the group is fighting against one of its client, the Korean firm Samsung C&T, for overruns on the mining project Roy Hill. The court of arbitrage in Singapore calculates that DF may recover almost €140 million (the last invoice amounted to €40 million, plus €90 million in avals). The Australian courts are claiming €46 million, of which €9 million has been already recovered. In Argentina, Duro is claiming another €150 million for overruns at the power plant in Vuelta Obligado. Finally, in Venezuela, the Government led by Nicolás Maduro still owes the Spanish group €101 million.

Original story: Expansión (by C. Morán)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Hispania Buys Plot Of Land In Madrid For €32M

25 October 2016 – Expansión

The Socimi Hispania has purchased a plot of land in Madrid for €32 million, where it plans to construct two offices buildings.

The plot is located on Vía de los Poblados, 1, in the Campo de las Naciones area of the city, next to the Cristalia business park. The acquisition has been carried out through the company Mangareva Development, S.L..

The Socimi will develop a complex on this land comprising two office buildings with a combined surface area of 56,000 m2, of which 33,124 m2 will be above ground. In addition, the site will have 800 parking spaces.

The two buildings will be joined by a covered walkway and will have facilities such as restaurants and cafeterias, a gym, a nursery and an auditorium, amongst others.

The Socimi plans to begin construction work immediately for completion by the end of 2018. According to the company, “this development, one of the most important to be undertaken in Madrid over the next two years, will have the highest environmental certification levels and a LEED Platinum certificate”.

Original story: Expansión (by D.B.)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Blackstone Finalises Sale Of The Tucumán Building To Axia RE

26 March 2015 – El Confidencial

The Tucumán Building, located on the Glorieta de Mar de Cristal in Madrid measures 5,083 square metres. Until August 2013, when it was leased by Aegis Media, the asset was very “distressed”.

The talks are in their final phases. The fund Blackstone is finalising the sale of an office building measuring 5,000 square metres in Campo de las Naciones. The purchaser is the Socimi Axia Real Estate and the amount of the transaction is unknown. Blackstone is divesting the Tucumán Building, which it acquired from Sareb at the end of 2014 as part of the so-called Corona project, which also included the Delta Norte II and III office buildings, located to the north of Chamartín, and another office building in Montecarmelo, to the north of the capital. Three other properties also fell outside of that project, which were initially included in the portfolio of the “bad bank”, initially valued at €140 million.

It is not the first acquisition made by Axia Real Estate in Campo de las Naciones. In December 2013, five months after its stock market debut, the Socimi closed the purchase of a portfolio of buildings from Credit Suisse Asset Management for €180 million. The portfolio included the building at number 28 on Calle Ribera del Loira, in the business district of Campo de las Naciones in Madrid, as well as two other properties on Calle Vía de los Pobaldos, in the same area.

“The transaction will not be very relevant in terms of size, but it is very significant in several other respects. Firstly, the buyer is a Socimi, one of the most active investors in the market in the last year. This purchase would be clear signal that these companies are in ‘equity call’. That is, they are resorting to financing or may be considering capital increases to continue buying property”, explain financial sources.

Axia Real Estate raised €360 million through its IPO in July 2014. Since then, not only has it invested all of the funds it raised, it has also turned to financial institutions. In this way, for example, it financed the purchase of a portfolio of assets from Credit Suisse through a combination of own funds and bank financing.

Moreover, this future sale will involve the rotation of the first assets acquired from Sareb and “the fact that those who bought assets are selling them now, and obtaining a profit, sends a clear message to investors, that they can make money from assets purchased from the “bad bank””, explains one real estate source.

On the other hand, according to the experts consulted, this transaction is a clear symptom of the recovery in the Spanish real estate market, since investors have increased their scope beyond the prime area of Madrid. Campo de las Naciones is a fully consolidated business park where several transactions have been closed in recent months.

Besides Axia Real Estate, at the end of 2013, Lar España Real Estate closed the acquisition of the Egeo office building in Campo de las Naciones from the German company MEAG for €64.9 million.

The Tucumán Building, located on the Glorieta de Mar de Cristal has a surface area of 5,083 square meters. It was a very distressed asset until it was occupied by Aegis Media in August 2013. “The building was empty, with no tenants and located in an area that has nothing to do with the main business area of Madrid”, say real estate sources. “Now, however, the real estate situation has changed and the fact that the building has a tenant removes the risk of the property remaining vacant”.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Elena Sanz)

Translation: Carmel Drake