Tag: Chile

Chilean Group Osim Debuts In Spain With €480M Inv’t On Costa Del Sol

29 September 2017 – Diario Sur

The Chilean investment management company Osim has initiated the development of a series of projects along the Costa del Sol where it plans to invest around €480 million in total. The company is going to make its debut in Casares, where today (Friday) it will present a real estate project comprising more than 400 homes and involving an investment of €200 million, which will materialise over the next four years.

The site in question is the Alcazaba Lagoon urbanisation, where 92 homes have already been built and where another 340 units are expected to be constructed. This urbanisation, which will be officially unveiled tonight, includes a giant artificial lake, which occupies a surface area of 1.4 hectares and has an average depth of 2.5 metres. It is the first development of this kind to be undertaken in Europe.

The project comes in response to an initiative by the company, formed by the Chilean entrepreneurs Óscar Lería and Patricio Rojas, who through the management company Osim are planning to channel the arrival of capital from Chile into several real estate projects to be developed over the next few years in Marbella, Estepona, Torremolinas and Málaga capital, according to comments made by Lería to Diario Sur.

The businessman explained that Alcazaba Lagoon represents the rescue of a project started in 2006 in Casares. Construction was suspended during the years of the crisis and has now has been brought back to life with the construction of the artificial lake and the redesign of the whole site, which will now comprise a block development with 78 units (…). The Town Hall of Casares has already granted the property developer the building permit for the first block.

According to Lería, the artificial lake forms the centrepiece of the complete rethink of the original project and has been the pet project of the architect Hugo Torrico. The development of housing blocks, which has also involved the modernisation of the original plans, has been carried out by three Chilean architects: Cristian Larrain, Jaime Hernández and Diego Aigeren.

Lería explains that the water feature, as well as forming the central part of the project, represents an absolute innovation in Europe, offering several advantages and not only functionally speaking, given that it contains an artificial beach 6km from the coast, where people can practice water sports. Moreover, he explains, the maintenance of the lake requires a water cost of less than 50% of that of a garden, twenty times less than that of a golf course and 100 times less than that of swimming pools with the same volume of water.

The homes have asking prices ranging between €250,000 and €500,000 and are aimed primarily at the foreign market, with British buyers in the lead.

According to data provided by the company, the residential complex will result in the creation of around 3,000 direct and indirect jobs during the construction and sales process and for the maintenance of the facilities.

Original story: Diario Sur (by Héctor Barbotta)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Phoenix Buys Hotel Intercontinental In Torre Pacheco

18 January 2016 – La Opinión de Murcia

A Chilean group has acquired the five-star Hotel Intercontinental La Torre from Polaris World, the property developer from Balsicas, which filed for liquidation following the suspension of payments that ended with the transfer of the majority of the homes that it had constructed in urbanisations in Murcia to Sareb.

The new owner of the property, considered the jewel in the crown of the company created by Pedro García Meroño and Facundo Armero, is the company Phoenix, which already owns a luxury resort in Marbella called La Quinta. The so-called bad bank is also negotiating sales operations with a Spanish chain, which, if they materialise, may result in the sale of other assets by the property developer.

The Chilean group Phoenix is a business conglomerate backed by family capital, headquartered in Santiago de Chile. It holds investments in the real estate, tourism, renewable energy and finance sectors. One of its most high profile projects is Haciendas Talinay, a megaproject involving real estate and tourism developments located to the north of Santiago, in the IV Region of Chile, covering a surface area of 25,000 hectares, along 23 km of the Pacific Ocean coast.

Besides the Hotel Intercontinental La Torre, the Chilean group has acquired a retail centre containing a number of restaurants.

Polaris had constructed another five star hotel in Torre Pacheco called Intercontinental Mar Menor, which has 64 rooms.

The majority of Polaris’s urbanisations that have golf courses were transferred to the company IRM, which was constituted by the banks that had financed the company’s expansion until the burst of the real estate bubble halted its plans in their tracks….However, most of Polaris’s assets ended up in the hands of Sareb, which is now negotiating other operations. Sareb’s President, Jaime Echegoyen, declared in Murcia last May that he expected to see options to sell homes constructed by the property developer from Balsicas “in a piecemeal fashion”. (…).

The purchase of the Hotel Intercontinental, which has been closed to the public since 2013, is considered as an example of the interest that investor groups and tour operators have in Murcia. It is hoped that the operation will represent a new start for the region, which has endured severe economic hardship in recent years, since the crisis put a stop to the ambitious tourism projects of the boom years (…). CAM and Banco de Valencia both become major creditors of Polaris World, which ended up transferring the hole caused by debts with Polaris, which reportedly amounted to around €900 million, to Bankia.

Meanwhile, legal investigations that are being undertaken, following the collapse of CAM and Bancaja, have identified irregularities in terms of the granting of loans to the company from Balsicas.

Original story: La Opinión de Murcia

Translation: Carmel Drake