Tag: CatalunyaCaixa

Blackstone to Raise €8bn for its European Real Estate Fund

25 March 2019 – Idealista

The US fund Blackstone wants to raise funds to continue growing in Europe. The fund manager expects to secure up to €8 billion for its next European real estate fund, which is going to be called Blackstone Real Estate Partners Europe VI.

The new vehicle’s investments will have tickets starting from €75 million and will include portfolios of properties and corporate operations as the target assets.

Spain is very much on Blackstone’s radar following its purchase of 51% of Popular’s real estate business from Santander for €5.1 million, in one of the largest operations signed last year.

Moreover, the fund has purchased the property of CatalunyaCaixa, the shares of Hispania (including its large hotel portfolio) and the shares of Testa, the rental home company.

Original story: Idealista 

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

BBVA will be Twice as Profitable Following its Property Sale to Cerberus

11 June 2018 – Expansión

BBVA is going to double its profitability once it has completed the sale to Cerberus of its €13 billion real estate exposure, scheduled for the third quarter of the year. According to a recent report from Alantra, the ROTE ratio (Return on Tangible Equity) will leap from 7% to 15% in 2020. In addition to the aforementioned operation, which will eliminate in a flash the hefty maintenance costs associated with those properties, there will also be a positive impact resulting from the first upwards movement in interest rates (…).

The main advantage of removing the non-performing assets from its balance sheet is that it will allow the bank’s returns to flourish, which would otherwise be blocked. The key to being able to do this is having sufficient provisions to ensure that the sale of a large package to a specialist fund does not lead to significant losses on the income statement.

The operation between BBVA and Cerberus was the second largest of its kind in Spain last year. The largest was the deal involving Santander and €30 billion in property from Popular, which was sold to Blackstone.

BBVA created a company with Cerberus, controlled 80% by the US fund and 20% by the bank, to which it transferred 78,000 properties. Cerberus appraised them with a discount of 61%.

Cataluña

47% of those assets are located in Cataluña, historically the region covered by CatalunyaCaixa and Unnim, and absorbed by BBVA during the crisis. The Catalan political crisis, which reached its peak in October 2017 with the holding of an illegal referendum, came close to thwarting the operation. These homes will be managed by Haya Real Estate, the real estate management platform owned by Cerberus.

BBVA granted Cerberus a €800 million loan to finance part of the acquisition.

Following the deconsolidation, the bank’s real estate risk will be reduced to €11.4 billion. It barely has any doubtful property developer debt.

Original story: Expansión (by R. Lander)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Redevco & Ares Purchase 70% of Parque Corredor Shopping Centre

2 February 2018 – Expansión

Yesterday, after more than a year and a half of negotiations, Redevco Iberian Ventures – the joint venture formed by Redevco and Ares – closed the purchase of 70% of Parque Corredor (located in Torrejón de Ardoz, Madrid) for €140 million. The new owners are preparing to give the asset a makeover, with an additional investment of €40 million, which will be used primarily to renovate the asset. Until now, Parque Corredor had a very fragmented ownership structure (…) and although the asset has an occupancy rate of 95% and receives more than 10 million visitors per year, investment is required for its repositioning.

With the completion of this operation, which has been advised by Deloitte, Cushman & Wakefield and Simmons & Simmons, Redevco Iberian Ventures has acquired the 40% stake held by Sareb – the largest shareholder until now -; the 14.5% stake held by Aermont (previously Perella Winberg); the 3.6% stake held by El Corte Inglés; and the 3% stake held by Bowling, as well as almost 10% held by smaller shareholders. On the other hand, Alcampo will retain its 24% stake in Parque Corredor, as will the Town Hall of Torrejón de Ardoz, which owns a municipal court there, and Toys R’ Us.

Parque Corredor is the third largest shopping centre in the Community of Madrid, behind Xanadú and Parquesur, and one of the largest in Spain, with a surface area of 123,000 m2 and 3,800 parking spaces. In the past, the centre was controlled by CatalunyaCaixa, which foreclosed a loan that had been granted to Testa. That stake was subsequently passed onto Sareb.

The new owners plan to reposition the shopping centre, which opened its doors in 1996. Redevco and Ares plan to spend €40 million on the complete renovation of the asset, which will be undertaken in stages and will not result in the temporary closure of the shopping centre. The remodelling plan, approved in July last year by the community of owners of the centre, is supported by the tenants.

Renovation

The proposed renovation will involve increasing the size of the stores so that some of its main tenants can open flagship stores there and making the leisure area more attractive to increase the number of visitors. The renovation work may take between 12 and 18 months. Parque Corredor is home to 180 establishments, an Alcampo supermarket measuring 24,000 m2 and nine cinema screens managed by Cinesa. Currently, the fashion and accessories section accounts for 24% of the shopping centre, with tenants such as Primark, H&M, El Corte Inglés, Sfera and Mango, amongst other brands. Next comes the Alcampo hypermarket (24%), the restaurant area (14%), leisure (10%), services (9%) and food, perfume and cosmetics (9%).

Competition

Inside Parque Corredor’s area of influence, the French firm Compañía de Phalsbourg plans to open the Open Sky shopping centre, measuring 85,000 m2. The construction work on that centre started in October last year.

Redevco Iberian Ventures, created in September 2015, acquired the Mercado de San Miguel in Madrid last summer for €70 million. In addition, last year, the joint venture company sold a portfolio of nine shopping centres to Vukile Property Fund, a company listed on the Johannesburg Stock Market (South Africa) through its Socimi Castellana Property for €193 million.

The company owned by Redevco and Ares has funds amounting to €500 million allocated for identifying and acquiring assets.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Moody’s Warns Of Higher Default Risk For Restructured Mortgages

11 November 2016 – Expansión

Yesterday, the ratings agency Moody’s issued a warning about mortgages that are being restructured, which represents an increasingly larger pool, thanks to the economic recovery and the proliferation of real estate management platforms. In the entity’s opinion, several variables may lead to an increase in the risk profile of these assets. Specifically, restructured mortgages are more risky when: the mortgage term is extended; grace periods are granted for the payment of interest or the repayment of the principal; interest charges are reduced; and other modifications are made.

This warning comes just a few weeks after Blackstone created the first securitisation fund in Europe containing restructured loans, amounting to €265 million. It created the fund using mortgages that it purchased from Catalunya Banc at the beginning of 2015. Nevertheless, it only included loans that borrowers have been repaying normally, without any help, for more than 37 months.

Analysts at Moody’s consider that foreign residents in Spain are twice as likely to default on their loans than Spaniards. “A defaulted payment by a foreigner on a Spanish loan does not have any impact on his credit history in his country of origin; and clearly, that reduces the incentive for him to seek solutions to repay his debt”, say the experts. In turn, the risk of default is 30% higher for borrowers who have restructured mortgages over secondary residences compared with those who have restructured mortgages over primary residences.

Moody’s has also conducted analysis by geographic region and in this sense, its results are clear: borrowers who have restructured mortgages for homes on the coast are almost twice as likely to default than borrowers with restructured mortgages in Madrid.

The default rate

Meanwhile, Axesor forecasts that the default rate for loans to families and companies will close the year at 8.96%, which would bring it below the 9% threshold for the first time since May 2012. The balance of doubtful debts amounted to €116,613 million in August, which represented a YoY decrease of 17.58%, and that figure is expected to continue to fall at a double-digit pace, which means that we could close the year with a doubtful debt balance of around €110,051 million.

Original story: Expansión (by D.B.)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Anticipa Evaluates Purchase Of Sareb’s Large RE Debt Portfolio

8 November 2016 – Expansión

The real estate manager Anticipa Real Estate, a subsidiary of the US fund Blackstone, has expressed its interest in acquiring a portfolio of 200 non-performing loans worth €1,000 million, which the bad bank Sareb put up for sale last month.

It is the largest real estate debt portfolio that the Spanish bad bank has put on the market in its three and a half years of life. Sareb hopes to sell the portfolio in its entirety to a single buyer, and it is expected to award it through a competitive process that will be completed at the end of 2016 or the beginning of 2017.

In an interview, the CEO of Anticipa, Eduard Mendiluce, said that the company has not yet submitted a binding offer for the portfolio, which was put up for sale just three weeks ago, but he confirmed that his firm intends to analyse the portfolio because it is very attractive.

Mendiluce commented that in the last twelve months, no large real estate portfolios have come onto the market, which he explained was due to the crisis in the financial sector, which “needs time to absorb the provisions required for foreclosed assets and non-performing loans before those assets can be sold”.

Anticipa, which has starred in some of the major operations undertaken in the sector in recent years, such as the purchase of a portfolio of non-performing mortgages from CatalunyaCaixa and the purchase of a portfolio containing property developer loans from Sareb, currently manages around €10,000 million in problem loans and owns a stock of 5,000 homes.

All of these properties have come into its possession as a result of “daciones en pago” – when the owner hands over the home to pay off his outstanding debt – and 70% of them are currently being leased out.

In fact, one of Anticipa’s objectives is to become a leading manager in the rental market in Spain.

In this sense, Mendiluce has called on the different governments to launch a “clear and convincing” aid program to support the rental market (in Spain) and place it at the level of other countries in Europe, where this way of accessing a home is much more widespread.

For example, the Director is proposing tax incentives for families who choose to rent, for renovations and for people who are unable to pay market prices.

“In short, a set of measures that incentivise private operators to back this market as an alternative for investing and managing a supply of competitive and high-quality homes”, he said.

Mendiluce added that as “large, stable and solid” companies emerge with a stock of high-quality and attractive homes for rent for families, so demand will consolidate in Spain, just like it has done in other European countries, such as Germany and United Kingdom, where several large, listed and unlisted, companies operate with thousands of rental properties on their balance sheets.

“In addition to the aspects of professionalisation of the sector and improvements in techniques and procedures, we need a dedicated aid program to support rental housing from the central, regional and local governments”, he said.

Anticipa is based in El Prat de Llobregat (Barcelona) and currently employs 303 people.

Original story: Expansión

Translation: Carmel Drake

BBVA & CX Grant 25% More Mortgages In Cataluña

17 August 2016 – Expansión

BBVA and CatalunyaCaixa granted 4,700 new mortgages during the month of June 2016, which represents an increase of 25% on the monthly average number of mortgages granted. The mortgage volume increased to €521 million, and the improvement in the mortgage market has been attributed to the positive trend in terms of demand for housing in Cataluña.

Original story: Expansión

Translation: Carmel Drake

Anticipa Has Accepted 2,400 ‘Daciones En Pago’ In 1 Year

18 April 2016 – El Periódico

Anticipa Real Estate, the real estate manager that the fund Blackstone acquired from CatalunyaCaixa, began by purchasing a portfolio of non-performing mortgage loans from the former savings banks for €3,600 million. The portfolio included 40,000 mortgages worth €6,400 million. In addition, it bought portfolios of property developer loans from Sareb and CaixaBank. Since April 2015, when that operation was closed, Anticipa has worked to recover those loans and the underlying collateral – the repossession of the asset -. During this period, it has signed agreements with 3,000 borrowers, of which 2,400 have resulted in ‘daciones en pago’ – “the handing over of homes in exchange for the cancelation of debt” – and 600 have resulted in the renegotiation of the loan, in such a way that the borrowers can make their mortgage repayments, according to Anticipa’s own summary of its first year of management.

The servicer – which is also responsible for managing the real estate assets of CatalunyaCaixa, now BBVA – bought the portfolio on 15 April 2015 and between then and 30 March 2016, it has closed around 400 operations per month. “We have signed 20 operations per day”, say sources at the entity. “And we have prioritised friendly relationships to enable both parties to reach an agreement”. The entity highlights that this process has been carried out whilst maintaining a good understanding with the platforms of people affected by mortgages (PAH), although they acknowledge that there are certain discrepancies with the PAH in Barcelona, which regards Blackstone as a “vulture” fund, even though it is a long-term real estate investor, which is firmly committed to the rental management business in Spain.

Anticipa highlights that it applies the code of good practice under Spanish legislation, whereby those families who have nowhere to go after a ‘dación en pago’ are offered social housing. In fact, 25% of the borrowers of the 40,000 mortgages pay their monthly instalments on time. Anticipa sends out an invoice each month and collects the corresponding funds. Of the remaining 75%, some (25%) of the borrowers pay intermittently and the rest (50%) do not pay at all. The company prioritises enabling those borrowers who pay intermittently to become regular payers, through the refinancing of their loans. “We apply a partial discount, we amend the term, the interest rate and the loan principal, to reduce the instalment and whereby facilitate the payment”, explains the entity.

Case by case analysis

If the borrower is still unable to pay, he is offered a ‘dación en pago’, and the remaining debt is cancelled in most cases. “Each case is analysed on an individual basis”. Anticipa helps the borrower to find a home if he has to leave or offers him a property to rent “at market price” or by means of “social housing”, as appropriate.

The entity does not rule out mortgage foreclosures when there is no other way of reaching an agreement with the borrower…But, “we have not carried out any evictions”, say sources at the entity…and the objective is to negotiate in order to avoid eviction in all cases”, they add.

Anticipa, led by Eduard Mendiluce…employs 360 people, of which almost 150 are dedicated exclusively to negotiating with borrowers. (…).

Original story: El Periódico (by Max Jiménez Botías and Olga Grau)

Translation: Carmel Drake

The 6 Largest Banks Reduce Toxic Assets By 5% To €120,000M

10 November 2015 – El Economista

Last week, in its bi-annual stability report, the Bank of Spain warned about the hindrance that the large volume of toxic assets still on banks’ balance sheets means for the financial sector. The national supervisor considers that these kinds of assets are preventing the sector from improving its profitability given the significant costs associated with them, at a time when revenues are still decreasing due to the ultra-low interest rates and the scarce lending activity.

The Bank of Spain estimates that around €224,000 million non-performing assets are still held on banks’ balance sheets in the system as a whole. Of that amount, more than half are held by the six main banking groups, one of which, Bankia, transferred the majority of its foreclosed assets and property developer loans to Sareb in 2012, as part of the rescue plan. At the end of September, the six entities accumulated €120,443 million of non-performing assets in gross terms, excluding provisions for impairment. In nine months, that figure decreased by just 5.39%.

A recent report from Analistas Financieros Internacional (AFI) said that the profitability of the sector would double with the divestment of these kinds of assets, and so it recommended a mass sale in the short term. The entities have already put sizeable packages on the market as they seek to reduce their balance sheets’ exposure to the real estate sector, but some operations have been delayed due to the instability generated by the (political) situation in Cataluña and the approaching general election. Some of those affected have included the block sale of all of Bankia’s properties and the sale of a portfolio of homes by Popular for around €450 million.

Loans to property developers

The decrease in non-performing assets has been driven by a 19.1% drop in loans to property developers, as a result of maturities, the sale of certain lots, discounts on debt, exchanges for properties and the extremely low level of activity. By September, the six entities had cut their financing to the real estate sector by €52,500 million, and for the first time, the amount was lower than the gross value of the properties foreclosed due to non-payment. Those now total more than €67,000 million, as a result of debt conversion processes undertaken by both companies and by individuals, which have driven up the volume by almost 9% since the beginning of the year.

The only large entity that has managed to reduce its portfolio of foreclosed assets is Bankia, but it is worth noting that it conducted a significant clean-up of its balance sheet with a view to the transfer of its assets to Sareb. The properties held by the nationalised bank decreased by 4.11%.

It is also worth noting the 17.27% increase that BBVA has experienced in this respect, primarily as a result of the absorption of CatalunyaCaixa. In this case, the integration of that entity means that the group led by Francisco González is the only one that registered an increase in the volume of loans to property developers, up by 7%. (…).

Original story: El Economista (by Fernando Tadeo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

CatalunyaCaixa Inmobiliaria Completes 87% Capital Reduction

4 November 2015 – Economía Digital

During the crisis, the real estate and mortgage businesses of many banks in Spain ended up becoming a major hindrance on their balance sheets, due to soaring delinquency, the large portfolio of homes resulting from evictions and the depreciation of assets.

One of the most exposed savings banks was CatalunyaCaixa and, although it transferred a significant volume of its homes to Sareb and sold its portfolio of non-performing loans to Blackstone, the property crash left a marked dent on its results, which the bank – now in the hands of BBVA – has had to offset with a significant reduction in the capital of its real estate arm.

A capital reduction of €240 million

CataluynaCaixa Inmobiliaria has recently carried out a capital reduction amounting to €239.67 million, equivalent to 87% of its share capital prior to the operation. Following this reduction, the real estate company’s share capital has been reduced to €35 million, according to registry data.

Sources at the entity have explained that the reduction has been carried out to offset losses from previous years. Although the entity had already reflected these losses in its annual results, it had to reduce its share capital to make it equivalent to its equity position, something that is has done this year in one fell swoop.

Only 6,000 homes left

CatalunyaCaixa Inmobiliaria is the holding company for the homes owned by the bank, of which there are around 6,000, according to a statement by the entity. In 2012, it transferred the majority of its portfolio to the so-called bad bank, Sareb, involving 27,500 homes, as well as around 10,000 other assets from property developers.

It got rid of its most problematic properties through this transfer, but not its homes worth less than €100,000 or the developments worth less than €200,000. Those, together with the homes that have entered its portfolio since the transfer as a result of new foreclosures, bring the total to around 6,000.

Moreover, so as to not accumulate more housing stock and at the same time, clean up its balance sheet, it closed the sale of a problem mortgage portfolio to the US fund Blackstone in April for €4,123 million.

Original story: Economía Digital (by Xavier Alegret)

Translation: Carmel Drake