Tag: Corestate

GSA Completes the Purchase of a New Hall of Residence in Madrid

Global Student Accommodation (GSA) has reached an agreement with Corestate to purchase the Emilia Pardo Bazán student residence in Madrid, which has more than 300 rooms.

Global Student Accommodation (GSA) has closed the purchase of a student residence in Madrid. Specifically, GSA has acquired the Emilia Pardo Bazán complex, located in the Ciudad Universitaria area. The property has 302 rooms, both doubles and singles, for students.

The hall of residence, which opened in 2008, was owned by the German firm Corestate Capital Advisors.

Corestate to Invest €30 Million in New Student Residence in Barcelona

21 October 2019 – Luxembourg-based Corestate Capital Holding will invest thirty million euros in developing a new student residence at Calle Pallars 489, in the city’s technological district, 22@, near then Pompeu Fabra University.

The building, which should be ready by 2022, will have a net leasable area of 4,550 square meters, with 257 flats for a total of 265 students. The new student residence will also have a co-working space, as well as two terraces, a swimming pool and a gym.

The company’s student housing provider, Youniq, will operate the residence. That firm already manages four other student residences in Spain.

Original Story: Eje Prime – Marta Casado Pla

Adaptation/Translation: Richard D. K. Turner

Corestate to Invest €25 Million to Build New Student Residence in Salamanca

20 July 2019 – Richard D. K. Turner

Corestate Capital Holding, an investment fund based in Luxembourg, will invest 25 million euros to develop a student residence on Calle Santiago Diego Madrazo, next to the University of Salamanca.

The property will have a net leasable area of 4,000 square meters, including 258 flats and 301 beds. The building will also have several common areas such as a TV room, gym and terrace, along with 74 parking spaces.

Original Story: Eje Prime – Marta Casado Pla

Corestate Launches its Business Apartment Venture in Spain

28 March 2019 – Eje Prime

The Luxembourg-based fund manager Corestate has launched a business apartment venture, Joyn, aimed exclusively at executives travelling to other cities for a relatively long period of time.

The company plans to open three business apartment blocks in 2019, two in Madrid and one in Barcelona, with approximately 200 beds each. It is already searching for assets in key locations of each city, such as La Diagonal and 22@ in Barcelona and Las Tablas in Madrid.

The apartments will each have a small kitchen, study and living room. There will also be common areas in each building to encourage networking. The model has already proved successful in Munich, where Corestate has been operating two such properties since 2018.

In addition, the company’s agreement with Medici Living is starting to take shape – the intention is to close this year with 450 co-living beds in Spain.

Original story: Eje Prime (by Marta Casado Pla)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

C&W: Investors Spent €300M on Student Halls in Spain in 2018

25 March 2019 – Eje Prime

Investors galore have set their sights on the market for student halls in Spain. Three major institutional investors, Axa, Invesco and Nuveen, have launched themselves into the construction and management of these types of properties, which they consider are reliable bets that generate high returns.

According to Cushman & Wakefield, investment in student halls in Spain amounted to almost €300 million in 2018. And the consultancy firm expects that figure to be exceeded in 2019.

Spain currently has 1.6 million students, of whom around 15% are potential users of student halls. Nevertheless, the accommodation stock comprises just 95,000 beds, which represents 6% of all matriculated students. As such, there is a lot of potential in the market.

In summary, demand is growing, supply is limited and returns are high, currently averaging 5.25% in Spain. As such, the market has captured the attention of global investors.

Indeed, investors in Spain generally fall into one of two categories: institutional investors with an international profile, such as the three players mentioned above; and European investors specialising in student halls, particularly those from the North of Europe, such as the British firms GSA and Collegiate, the Dutch firm The Student Hotel and the German company Corestate.

Meanwhile, the consultancy firm Savills Aguirre Newman calculates that around twenty major operations could be closed in this segment in 2019, which could result in investment of more than €2 billion over the next few years.

Original story: Eje Prime (by Roger Arnau)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Barcelona Gets Ready for the Residential Equivalent of Coworking: ‘Coliving’

29 January 2019 – Idealista

Whilst last year, coworking was one of the most repeated words, this year, it seems that the residential equivalent is on everyone’s lips, specifically, the new formulae for housing, ‘coliving’. So much so that Barcelona is already preparing to receive the first operators: the Consortium of the Zona Franca, a public entity tasked with the economic revitalisation of the city of Barcelona and its metropolitan area, is already managing licences to open the first coliving centres in the La Marina neighbourhood.

Although the names of the firms that are going to make their debuts in Spain under this model are unknown for the time being, sources in the sector say that they have already started to process the first permits for projects that are in an initial phase. “Just like coworking has become a successful phenomenon for the office market in Spain over the last 2 years, so professionalised coliving wants to follow in its footsteps and try its luck in the residential market”, explain sources at the real estate consultancy firm Forcadell.

“The large international investment funds, in their search for alternative assets that offer higher returns, are studying the Spanish market to implement this model, which has already proved successful in other countries such as the USA, Germany, the UK and Japan (Tokyo)”, say the sources at Forcadell.

With their arrival, these operators will professionalise a common practice in Spain of house sharing, by adding sophisticated aspects more typical of student halls. The coliving projects that have been developed to date comprise complexes with bedrooms and individual bathrooms on the one side and large common areas with movie theatres and games rooms (with ping pong, pool. etc.), libraries, gyms, restaurants and swimming pools, amongst others, on the other side.

According to Toni López, Partner at Forcadell and Director of the company’s real estate area, “the millenials have changed the way of consuming and have championed a change of thinking around property ownership, experience and use; it is logical and inevitable that this trend will expand to the real estate sector”. They are a generation that values experiences and seeks to optimise resources to the max, paying only for the use and experience of an asset, without incurring the cost and hassle involved with its ownership.

Medici and Corestate, the first brave players

Medici and Corestate have become the first groups to look closely at Spain for their new homes under the coliving formula (…). The German company Medici has joined forces with the German fund Corestate to invest more than €1 million in the development of business across all of Europe. In the Spanish market, the company will operate under the Quarters brand and it is already negotiating its first coliving project in Barcelona (…).

Medici already has three coliving buildings in Berlin, with capacity for 45 residents and nine apartments; and two more in the USA, in cities such as New York and Chicago, where the monthly rents range between USD 1,100 (€967) and USD 1,500 (€1,320) (…).

Original story: Idealista (by Custodio Pareja)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Corestate to Invest €100M in Student Halls By 2019

4 December 2018 – Eje Prime

Corestate is growing in Spain three years after its arrival. The Luxembourg-based fund manager is going to invest €100 million in the development of new student halls in the Spanish market between the end of this year and 2019, according to comments made by Christopher Hütwohl, the Head of the company in the country, speaking to Eje Prime.

Currently, the group has several plots in its sights, located in the main provincial capitals of Spain. “Valencia, Málaga, Pamplona, Sevilla, Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao and Alicante are on our radar”, explained the executive, who also confirmed that between December and the first quarter of next year, the company plans to close at least three operations.

Corestate’s main objective involves becoming one of the top three players in the student hall market in Spain. “It is a segment that still has a lot of potential, which is why we do not want to limit ourselves to a specific number of projects”, says Hütwohl. In fact, the director confirmed that the company plans to develop around three developments in each city, with capacity for between 200 and 350 beds, “except for in Alicante due to the limitations of that territory”.

Similarly, the group has the intention of expanding its range of investments in Spain from 2019 onwards. “Now we are very focused on the market for student halls, but we also want to undertake more operations, especially in the office, retail and residential segments across the whole Iberian Peninsula”, explained the executive. In this way, Hütwohl made clear the company’s objective of entering the Portuguese market before 2020.

Corestate sweeps across Europe

This year, Corestate has undertaken one of the largest operations in Europe in the market for student halls of residence with the purchase of CRM Students for €17 million. It is the largest manager of student halls, which operates in the United Kingdom, with 24,000 beds spread across 145 cities. “The type of collaboration that we will carry out has yet to be determined, but thanks to that acquisition, we have exceeded the 30,000-bed threshold in the European market”, said the executive.

Headquartered in Luxembourg and with 560 employees, Corestate has 41 offices around the world, located in cities such as Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Singapore and Zurich. In Spain, the company’s team comprises three people, a number that will grow as new projects are delivered.

The company led by Michael Bütter ended 2017 with revenues of €195 million and the group expects to achieve a turnover of €230 million in 2018. The gross operating profit (EBTIDA) amounted to €123 million in 2017, whilst the net result amounted to €93.3 million.

Original story: Eje Prime (by B. Seijo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Corestate Acquires 24 Commercial Properties for €212M

9 November 2018 – Eje Prime

Corestate has acquired a portfolio of retail assets. The Luxembourg-based fund manager has purchased 24 commercial properties, located in 17 German cities, for €212 million. The properties comprise a total surface area of 100,000 m2.

The tenants of these assets include retailers such as New Yorker, Rewe, Müller and Dm. With this operation, Corestate is fulfilling its latest investment program launched in April, through which it plans to invest €250 million in total, according to reports from Property EU.

“Our investors are still convinced by the success of retail assets in the pedestrianized areas of medium-sized and prosperous German cities”, said Thomas Landschreiber, co-founder of Corestate. “We will continue with this focus and we will also diversify our range of products in the retail sector with more investment programs”, he added.

Corestate arrived in Spain in 2015 hand in hand with the Villar Mir Group, but it has a long history in markets such as Germany, where it owns 6,000 beds in student halls of residence. The company’s investments include retail assets (with premises on the high streets of medium-sized German cities), offices, residential and micro-flats.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Greystar to Manage Bilbao’s New 351-Bed Student Hall Atop the Bus Station

31 August 2018 – El Correo

The future Termibus building in Bilbao will mark a before and after in the neighbourhood of Basurto. It will turn the area on its head, in conjunction with the other major urban planning operations being undertaken in the provincial capital. And not only because it will put an end to the problems that the buses have caused the neighbourhood for decades (…). But also because its placement underground will enable the construction of a 9,000 m2 square and a sophisticated 11-storey building, containing a hotel, a hall of residence for students and a shopping centre.

And it is getting increasingly closer because the terminus project, which must be finished within less than a year, is progressing at full speed. (…). After digging the hole, now it is time to build the four below-ground floors, one by one. The two lower floors will house a rotating parking lot with 528 spaces and the upper two floors will contain the aforementioned intermodal station. At the same time, the names of the tenants that are going to manage the property’s services are starting to be announced.

The first to be made public is Greystar. The global leader in the management of student residences and rental properties in Spain has just acquired the educational accommodation complex from the business group Amenabar, chosen by the Town Hall of Bilbao to build the project as a whole. And it has done so after fighting off competition from top-level international firms such as Global Student Accommodation (GSA), Corestate, AMIRA and The Students Hotel (TSH).

The Basque property developer and construction firm will take care of everything. According to sources at the company, “we are going to construct the building, in an L-shape, and we will allocate the right-hand wing to a student residence”. Having completed it in its entirety “down to the last detail in terms of decoration”, it will hand over the facilities with all of the licences so that the manager (through Resa, its subsidiary in Spain) may open its doors in August 2020.

Shopping centre on the lower floors

The agreement reached seeks to make the most of the available space on the eleven floors of the establishment to provide 306 rooms. Most will be individual rooms, although there will also be some doubles, so that the total number of beds will be 351. “All of them will have a bathroom and an equipped kitchen, and 10 will be adapted for users with reduced mobility”, say the sources (…).

The retail space, which will span two floors and will occupy 7,500 m2 in a privileged area of the city, next to the new Garellano skyscraper, has also been put on the market. Amenabar is already receiving offers from a variety of interested parties, from supermarkets to gyms, to shops selling sportswear, textiles, household items, technology, lottery and hospitality “because a large cafeteria is planned to overlook the square”. The business group is interested in enhancing the diversification of the shops “because this area is going to be strategic in nature with more than 10 million people passing through it each year, including Termibus travellers and metro users, who will have a direct connection to the intermodal station”.

The hotel is the other pillar that will complete the comprehensive offering of the Termibus project. The left-hand wing of the building will be dedicated in its entirety to that activity. And, although the deadline for the tender that the Amenabar group has opened to chose the best candidate does not close until the end of October, the avalanche of proposals received is exceeding all forecasts. Sources at the company acknowledge that its privileged location, in the centre of Bilbao, right next to the San Mamés football stadium and with “unbeatable” transport connections, has sparked interest amongst operators from all over Spain and, above all, those that have great international appeal (…).

Original story: El Correo (by José Domínguez)

Translation: Carmel Drake

From Greystar to GSA, a Who’s Who of Investors in Spain’s Market for Student Residences

27 August 2018

With returns of 5.5%, the student housing market has become the new El Dorado of the real estate market. A long list of foreign funds are beginning to invest in this sector in Spain, and the supply of accommodations is expected to rise by almost 10% up to 2019.

Anglo-Saxon funds and operators dominate the wave of foreign capital that is taking on the market for student residences, one that offers returns of 5.5% in Spain. Just in 2017, investments grew from 50 million to 600 million euros.

The supply of assets in this alternative market has increased by 3.5% since 2015, boasting 93,563 beds in the market at the close of last year. Forecasts expect the sector to grow by another 1.5% this year and up to 7.7% at the end of 2019, according to data from the consultancy JLL. Which are the funds that dominate the sector? And who set to join this latest rush for gold?

The high point of the new wave of international investment in Spain’s resis (student residences) was reached at the end of 2017. Until December, Resa was considered the king of the residential market for university students in the country. It was owned by for years by the firm Lazora (Azora) until the arrival of the joint venture formed by AXA Real Assets and CBRE Global Investment Partners funds, which made an offer for roughly 500 million euros. Subsequently, the company’s 37 assets, distributed among 33 buildings and four undeveloped plots of land, were taken over by the specialised operator Greystar, partner of AXA Real Assets and CBRE GI.

Greystar’s place at the top of the list remains firm, but a long list of other players are vying to take the top spot. The British operators GSA and Collegiate, and the Luxembourg fund manager Corestate all have ambitious plans for growth in Spain.

GSA will invest 300 million euros in new acquisitions in the Spanish market, as reported by EjePrime. The international student-accommodation giant expects to be managing 10,000 beds in Spain within five years’ time. For now, the company has two projects underway in Barcelona, ​​in a total investment of thirty million euros, and is already working on plans to enter the market in Madrid, as well as exploring other cities such as Salamanca along with regional capitals in the south and north of the country.

For its part, Collegiate allied itself with the Spanish group Early Capital at the beginning of the year to enter Barcelona. The operator will manage the student residences at the Finestrelles complex, in Esplugues de Llobregat, acquired by Early last autumn, its third asset after the ones it already owns in Madrid and Valencia. Now, the company is looking for opportunities in Bilbao, Malaga and Granada.

Corestate also flew in from Luxembourg. Like the more than 473,000 university students who arrive every year in the country, searching for accommodation, the fund is looking to enrol in the sector. After beginning work on its first two projects, in Madrid (inauguration in September) and Seville, it is now finalising the purchase of a plot of land on which it is to develop another 400 beds. The manager’s goal is to become one of the top three players in the sector by 2020, with more than a thousand beds spread across the country. The company is already analysing the acquisition of another half a dozen plots of land to attain the goal it set for itself.

The Student Hotel is another of the major European players that have begun to take a close look at Spain. The Dutch operator has announced plans to invest 240 million euros in Spain and has already acquired two assets in Barcelona and will debut its first project in Madrid in 2019.

The Spanish ‘resi’ listed on the MAB

Although much of the capital that is being allocated to the student residence market in Spain comes from abroad, the local players are also looking for their piece of the pie. The Lofttown and Syllabus, a specialised vehicle created by Urbania International, are two clear examples of emerging, local interest in the sector.

Lofttown started its journey in the picturesque neighbourhood of Gràcia in Barcelona. Presided over by Santiago de Cruilles, the company already has two more projects in the Catalan capital in which it invested 24 million euros, EjePrime reported. The company is also analysing a possible debut in other cities around the country, such as Madrid, Girona and Valencia.

For its part, Syllabus is already currently one of the most active investors in the student residence market. Created last April by Urbania, the vehicle expects to invest up to 200 million euros in the development of new student residences in Spain. The company hired the former CEO of Hill International, Jeffrey Sújar, and has already made its first acquisitions, in Valencia and Malaga.

In addition, the university market in Spain is undergoing such a boom that a company that focuses on the market is also listed on the local stock exchange. Student Properties debuted on the Mercado Alternativo Bursátil (MAB) last December. Currently, the company owns a single asset, located in the district of Salamanca in Madrid.

Other possible arrivals

During this year and, above all, the one that is coming, new players are expected to enter the market for university residences. On such arrival is the American giant CA Ventures, which has Spain squarely in its sights within a 500-million-euro European investment plan.

Other institutional investors that are interested in the market include the Belgian group Life, the American investment fund Round Hill and the British operator Amro. The latter is looking for a partner in the national market to invest up to €300 million to create a portfolio of 5,000 beds in southern Europe.

Original Story: EjePrime – Jabier Izquierdo

Translation: Richard Turner