Prologis, Blackstone & Deutsche Bank Bid For Colonial’s Logistics Portfolio

20 June 2019 – Cinco Días

Inmobiliaria Colonial has chosen the three finalists who have submitted the highest bids for its logistics portfolio and they are: Prologis, the largest owner of warehouses in Europe; Blackstone, the US fund; and Deutsche Bank, through its manager DWS, according to market sources.

Colonial inherited a sizeable logistics portfolio from Axiare following its takeover of that firm last year, but since the Socimi focuses on offices in prime areas of Madrid, Barcelona and Paris, it put the logistics portfolio up for sale a few weeks ago.

The company has received around a dozen offers, from which it has selected three that exceed €400 million. It is planning to close the operation before the summer.

Original story: Cinco Días (by Alfonso Simón Ruiz)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Cerberus Receives 3 “Low” Offers For its Stake in Haya Real Estate

24 May 2019 – El Confidencial

Cerberus may be forced to revise down its price expectations for the sale of its real estate platform Haya Real Estate. The US fund had been hoping to receive more than €1 billion for the servicer, which is one of the largest in Spain, but so far the offers it has received amount to just €700 million.

There are currently three candidates in the running, namely, the Italian firm doBank, the US fund Centerbridge and the Asian fund Centricus, according to financial sources – all are familiar faces in the Spanish market and are willing to buy the servicer, but not for the asking price.

The reason is that considerable uncertainty exists over the renewal of Haya’s contract with Sareb, despite Cerberus’s efforts to diversify and grow the servicer’s portfolio with purchases such as the Apple Portfolio from Santander last year, and the agreement to purchase and manage almost all of BBVA’s property. Haya also administers assets for Bankia, Cajamar and Liberbank.

Nevertheless, Haya’s main client is still Sareb, for which it manages €21 million in debt and properties, which account for around half of the platform’s assets. That figure will fall to around a third following the agreement with Divarian, formerly Anida (BBVA), but Sareb wants to significantly reduce both the perimeter of management and the fees that it pays Haya, which would hit the servicer’s revenues hard.

As such, the funds in the running to purchase Haya are requesting protection clauses to cover themselves in the event of the various outcomes from the negotiations with Sareb, which are expected to conclude in September. Whether Cerberus will manage to sell its servicer before then remains to be seen.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Jorge Zuloaga & Ruth Ugalde)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Cerberus Puts Haya Real Estate up for Sale for c. €1.2bn

15 March 2019 – Eje Prime

Cerberus had been planning to list Haya Real Estate on the stock market but it suspended that operation in light of the political instability in the country, amongst other reasons. Instead, the US fund has decided to put the servicer up for sale.

The asking price is €1.2 billion and the advisor Rothschild has already made contact with possible interested parties. They include DoBank, which acquired Altamira in January for €412 million; the Swedish company Intrum, which purchased 80% of Solvia in December; and the fund manager Centricus.

Haya’s contract with Sareb is due to expire at the end of this year and the bad bank is understood to be considering not renewing the agreement as part of a wider strategic rethink.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Sareb Re-Opens the Bidding for its Renting Housing Socimi Témpore

7 March 2019 – El Confidencial

Sareb is putting up for sale the rental home Socimi that it constituted just over a year ago. Témpore, the third largest rental home firm in the country, after Blackstone (24,000 homes) and Azora (7,000 homes), owns 2,249 homes worth around €340 million. Candidates have two months to submit their binding offers.

The bad bank constituted Témpore in 2017 to provide an exit for a portfolio of homes proceeding from the bank restructuring process, and a few months later, it debuted the firm on the MAB.

The Socimi’s portfolio generated rental income of €7.3 million last year, up by 1.3% YoY, thanks to the renewal of contracts with the consequent increase in rents.

Témpore is sparking a great deal of interest amongst investors, providing further evidence of the appeal of the Spanish real estate market, especially the rental segment, for overseas investors.

Original story: El Confidencial 

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Sabadell Delays Completion of ‘Solvia Desarrollos Inmobiliarios’ Sale until May

28 February 2019 – El Confidencial

Banco Sabadell is finalising the sale of land from Solvia Desarrollos Inmobiliarios (SDIn) to complete its real estate divestment process with prices of between €900 million and €1.1 billion. The process began with more than 20 funds and property developers expressing interest. Analysts forecast that the Catalan entity will record gains of more than €200 million.

To this end, the bank chaired by Josep Oliu (pictured above, left), has already prepared a timetable. The entity has delayed the deadlines because it has taken longer than expected to receive some of the signed confidentiality agreements (NDAs). Now, the interested parties will have until 30 March to analyse SDIn and submit non-binding offers. The deadline for the subsequent period for the submission of binding offers will be 17 May.

In this way, Sabadell will have the second half of May to accept the winning bid, and then receive the corresponding authorisations to complete the divestment before July (…).

Analysts expect that the operation will be executed in the region of €1 billion, with a discount of 30% on the net asset value. Even so, that would result in capital gains from profits of more than €200 million, according to a report by Alantra, to which this newspaper has had access. In this way, the maximum quality capital ratio (CET1 fully loaded) would move towards 12%, approaching the 12.5% that the bank has set itself as a target for 2020 in its strategic plan. In December, the ratio amounted to 11.1%, well below the 12.8% from the previous year following the sale of toxic property and the problems with the integration with TSB.

The land has been valued at €1.3 billion by Savills Aguirre Newman and by the property developer SDIn itself (…).

Candidates include funds and property developers. Market sources point to Cerberus, Oaktree and Neinor homes as some of the leading contenders. The operation will require the buyer to become one of the largest real estate players in Spain (…).

In December, Banco Sabadell agreed the sale of its property developer Solvia to the Nordic fund Intrum for €300 million. Intrum is listed on the Stockholm stock exchange and is the owner of Lindorff and Aktua in Spain (…).

Original story: El Confidencial (by Óscar Giménez)

Translation: Carmel Drake

BBVA Sells its Last Large Problem Portfolio to CPPIB

17 December 2018 – El Confidencial

The Canadian fund CPPIB has been awarded BBVA’s last major portfolio of problem assets. The investor, which manages the money of the public pensions in the North American country, is negotiating the final details of its purchase of €2.5 billion in unpaid real estate loans from the Spanish entity, according to financial sources consulted by El Confidencial. BBVA declined to comment.

The sale, framed as Project Ánfora, is going to close within the next few days.

CPPIB has won the bid, fighting off competition from two major US investors: Cerberus and Lone Star. The auction has been coordinated by Alantra and, according to average market prices, must have been closed for a price of around €1 billion.

For BBVA, this same represents almost the conclusion of the clean up of its real estate inheritance. Together with Project Ánfora, the entity, which is still chaired by Francisco González, agreed to sell €12-13 billion in property to Cerberus (Project Marina) a year ago. The final details of that operation are still being closed with the Deposit Guarantee Fund (FGD).

Before the sale of Ánfora and Marina, BBVA had a net real estate exposure of €5.5 billion, based on data as at September 2018. The aim is for the real estate inheritance to be reduced to almost zero by the end of the year.

The Ánfora portfolio also contains refinanced loans amounting to €900 million, a new type of asset in this type of process.

For CPPIB, this is the second batch of problem assets that it has purchased from BBVA this year. It already acquired Project Sintra, containing €1 billion in unpaid loans to property developers.

The Canadian fund broke into Spain a few years ago with the acquisition of Altamira, together with Apollo and the ADIA sovereign fund, the main investor vehicle of Abu Dhabi. CPPIB’s interest in Spanish real estate means that it cannot be ruled out that it will end up being the buyer of Altamira following the current sales process. Large vehicles such as the Canadian one use alternative assets such as properties to diversify their portfolios and reduce their dependence on stock market and bonds.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Jorge Zuloaga)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Savills Values Solvia’s Property Developer Land at €1.3bn

12 December 2018 – El Confidencial

The banks are starting to benefit from the recovery in the real estate sector. Such is the case of Banco Sabadell, which has seen its portfolio of prime land appreciate by €300 million, or 30%, in recent months, ahead of its firing of the starting gun for the sale of its property developer, Solvia Desarrollos Inmobiliarios.

That is the result of an appraisal of the land that the consultancy firm Savills Aguirre Newman has performed for Sabadell. Initially, the plots were valued at €1 billion. They are the best quality plots of land that Sabadell has left since the outbreak of the crisis, and many of them are in areas with high demand in Madrid and Barcelona. For Savills, the chosen plots are now worth almost €1.3 billion, according to financial sources consulted by this newspaper.

Now that the appraisal has been performed, Sabadell and its chosen advisor for this operation, Rothschild, will launch the sale of the property developer SDI and the plots worth €1.3 billion, imminently.

This operation will result in the creation of one of the largest real estate companies in Spain. It will be even larger than Neinor when it was purchased by Lone Star.

The bank does not expect to close the sale of Solvia Desarrollos Inmobiliarios before the end of the first quarter of 2019. By contrast, Sabadell has also launched the sale of Solvia Servicios Inmobiliarios (the management platform), which is on the market for €300 million and whose sale it hopes to close in 2018. According to Expansión, Haya Real Estate (Cerberus), Intrum and Centricus are participating in that process.

Candidates

There are several funds amongst the candidates to acquire the property developer SDI including: Cerberus, Oaktree, Blackstone, Apollo and Lone Star. The first features in everyone’s list of likely contenders because of its good relationship with Sabadell in recent major operations. Moreover, it owns a property developer, Inmoglacier, with which there could be synergies following the operation.

Meanwhile, Oaktree is one of the candidates that would start with an advantage, given that it is Sabadell’s partner in similar businesses, and so it knows the team at SDI: they have a platform for the joint development of land and they have purchased land from Iberdrola. Nevertheless, according to sources close to the operation, that fund still needs to confirm its presence in the process.

Other candidates that still need to define their strategies include Blackstone, which is studying all of the operations with Aliseda, but which has opted more for rental assets until now; Apollo, which has wanted to enter the development segment for years; and Lone Star, which since its exit from Neinor has purchased Servihabitat and has as much appetite for Spanish property as it did before the crisis. ‘A priori’, the operation seems large for Bain Capital, owner of Habitat.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Jorge Zuloaga)

Translation: Carmel Drake

CPPIB Buys €800M RE Portfolio from Sabadell

20 December 2017 – Eje Prime

With year-end just around the corner, the major players in the real estate sector in Spain are putting the pressure on to close operations. Such is the case of Sabadell, which has just sold a portfolio of real estate assets worth €0.8 billion to the Canadian fund Canada Pension Investment Board (CPPIB) for approximately €0.2 billion.

This investment giant, which channels investments worth €210 billion, has won the auction for Project Voyager, through which the entity chaired by Josep Oliu is divesting €0.8 billion in problem loans linked to the construction, SME and hotel sectors, according to Voz Pópuli. The other finalists were Deutsche Bank, Bain Capital and Cerberus.

The completion of this agreement will represent CPPIB’s first investment in Spain; the fund is known for its conservative profile. With this sale, Sabadell will comfortably exceed its annual target of reducing its volume of problem assets by more than €2 billion. As at the end of September, it had decreased the balance by €1.764 billion, to just over €15.5 billion.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Liberbank Accelerates Sale Of Its RE Arm For €80M

20 July 2017 – Voz Pópuli

A defensive operation by Liberbank. The Asturian entity is accelerating the sale of its real estate company Mihabitans to strengthen its capital, according to financial sources consulted by Vozpópuli. The group led by Manuel Menéndez (pictured above), which declined to make comments, had been considering this possibility for months but has decided to fire the starting gun now, when the market’s focus has been placed on the entity. The prices being considered for this sale come in at just over €80 million.

The operation has been underway for several months under the watch of Alantra (formerly N+1). The subsidiary up for sale is Mihabitans Cartera, which Liberbank created in June last year. This company is responsible for managing the financial group’s homes and real estate debt. Liberbank has transferred some of its staff to the new entity. Its CEO is Víctor Sánchez, the Director that Menéndez entrusted to sort out the property portfolio at CCM following its purchase.

This sale, known in the market as Project Pipe, includes only the management of the real estate assets, a priori, and not their ownership. The idea is that it will take a similar form to the operation carried out by Santander with Altamira when Apollo purchased an 85% stake of that entity; as well as CaixaBank with Servihabitat, which is now controlled by TPG; and Popular with Aliseda.

According to the same sources, the process is in an advanced phase and several candidates have been selected to submit binding offers. The candidates include Lindorff, owner of Aktua; and Haya Real Estate, owned by Cerberus.

Crucial moment

These types of operations are undertaken to generate capital gains and strengthen capital. Given that they only manage properties, companies such as Mihabitans do not have any assets of their own other than their employees and the contract with the bank(s) that own(s) the properties. Depending on the contract agreed, the price may be higher or lower. In this way, Popular obtained around €700 million for Aliseda and Santander received €664 million for Altamira.

This sale comes at a key moment for Liberbank. Following the termination of CCM’s asset protection scheme (EPA), the group’s default rate soared in the last quarter and its capital decreased to 12%, above the levels required. Nevertheless, it is considering several options, such as the deal involving Mihabitans to strengthen itself and calm the market (…).

Liberbank has been compared to the entity that is now in the hands of Santander (Popular) in terms of its default rate, which in the case of the former amounted to 13% at the end of March. The objective is to bring it down below 7% within a year and a half. The entity had accumulated €2,951 million in doubtful debt and €2,414 million in foreclosed assets as at March, with a coverage (over the latter) of 40%. The sale of homes, which Mihabitans is responsible for, reached historical highs in the first quarter of €56 million (…).

Original story: Voz Pópuli (by Jorge Zuloaga)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Hard Rock Is Commissioned To Construct BCN World

5 July 2017 – Eje Prime

After years of toing and froing, BCN World has a new owner. In the end, the macro-complex is going to be constructed by the US group Hard Rock, which was the only firm to submit a firm offer and which has contributed €3 million as a guarantee to advance with the project, as the company explained in a statement.

Last Friday was the deadline for the submission of the designs to construct a recreation and tourist macro-complex, however, international candidates Genting Group and Melco Crown withdrew from the process before that date. The latter was going to be Hard Rock’s partner in the project.

The next key date is 10 July, when the details of the project will be revealed. Specifically, the architectural proposal and the economic feasibility studies. Then there will be a 45-day period for the award to be made public, although we already know that only one bid has been submitted.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake