Tag: Caser

Caser Buys an Office Building in Central Madrid

14 December 2018 – Eje Prime

Caser has acquired a prime asset in Madrid. The Spanish insurance company has purchased a building on Calle Velázquez measuring 5,460 m2. The property, which is occupied in its entirety, is home to commercial premises and offices, according to a statement issued by the company.

The property is located at number 94 of the central street in the Spanish capital and its surface area is distributed over the semi-basement floor, the mezzanine floor and six upper floors. The amount of the operation has not been disclosed and the deal has been advised by the consultancy firm Savills Aguirre Newman.

The building, which dates back to 1920, is being incorporated into Caser’s real estate portfolio, which comprises assets located in Madrid as well as in other cities around the country. Of the properties in the Spanish capital, the firm’s headquarters in Las Tablas stand out, as do the assets distributed in strategic locations such as Calle Alcalá, Plaza de la Lealtad and Julián Camarillo, where Eurovision has just leased offices, as revealed today in Eje Prime.

Original story: Eje Prime 

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

Liberbank Puts Building On c/San Jerónimo Up For Sale

13 September 2016 – El Confidencial

Liberbank has decided to cash in one of the gems that it inherited from the former Caja Castilla-La Mancha (CCM), specifically: the building located at number 19 on the sought-after Carrera de San Jerónimo. It is a modern, 5-storey building, with a ground floor, terrace and parking area, which was fully renovated less than a decade ago; and it is located just a stone’s throw away from Palacio de las Cortes, right in the heart of Madrid.

In financial circles, it has always been said that this building was a personal whim of Juan Pedro Hernández-Moltó, who, after leaving the Congress of Representatives and taking over the reins at CCM, saw an opportunity to unit his two passions in this property, which was completely remodelled in 2007, just two years before the Manchego entity was intervened by the Bank of Spain and sold to Cajastur, from which the current Liberbank emerged.

Faced with these trappings from the past, the entity led by Manuel Menéndez is now immersed in an asset sale process, which includes an open process to sell this headquarters building, which has a total surface area of 2,500 sqm and which may fetch up to €13 million upon sale, according to sources familiar with the process.

In addition, the decision to put this property up for sale comes a year and a half after Liberbank acquired a complex of office buildings measuring 13,500 sqm from Sareb in Fuente Mora, number 2, in the area known as Manoteras, which is close to the headquarters of companies such as Axa, Caser and BBVA’s Ciudad Financiera. (…).

Although initially, the group was considering the possibility of holding onto the headquarters on Carrera de San Jerónimo for its President and institutional work, the roadmap that the entity is now working with involves transferring all of its offices in Madrid to the new offices in Manoteras, and leaving the building free for the new purchaser to fill with its own tenant.

Sales plans

At the presentation of its latest quarterly results, Liberbank acknowledged that its priority now is to sell off as many of its non-performing assets as possible this year, given that the EPA (asset protection scheme) that it was granted by the State to cover it against potential losses in CCM will come to an end on 31 December 2016.

The hole inherited from the Manchego entity currently amounts to €2,000 million, whereas the cushion from the EPA barely amounts to €456 million. Its divestment strategy also includes trying to sell a portfolio of overdue mortgages amounting to between €700 million and €800 million.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Ruth Ugalde)

Translation: Carmel Drake