AURA News Real Estate

Grupo Baraka Sells a Logistics Warehouse in Murcia to Corum for €14M

11 June 2018 – Expansión

The Baraka Group, controlled by the businessman Trinitario Casanova, has closed an agreement to sell one of the logistics assets owned by its construction company Trabis.

Specifically, Baraka has sold a logistics warehouse, called Trabis II, located in the Murcian town of Yecla, the region where Casanova’s companies are headquartered. The property, which has a constructed surface area of 14,000 m2, has been sold for €14 million through a sale and leaseback contract.

“The advantage is that the buyer is guaranteed an asset in which the tenant will continue to undertake its activity”, explained Pablo Carvajal, Director of Capital Markets at Catella, the consultancy firm that has advised the new owner in the transaction.

The buyer is the French fund manager Corum Asset Management. Created in 2011 and with offices in Paris and Amsterdam, the firm set itself the objective last year of investing €500 million in real estate assets across Europe, with a special focus on Spain. For its investments, whose yields exceed 6%, Corum works with two funds Corum Origin and Corum XL, the latter was launched last year.

This is not the first time that Baraka and Corum have closed an operation together. In July 2016, the French firm paid more than €24.8 million for another logistics building also leased to Trabis.

Corum is one of the international investors that has opted to purchase logistics assets in Spain, a booming market due to its high returns and the increase in the e-commerce business. “The logistics investment market is proving attractive for domestic and international investors alike and increasingly more are investing in this type of asset. Between January and May, €250 million has been invested in these types of properties”, say sources at Catella.

At the overall level, investment during the first half of the year is expected to reach €5 billion. “During 2018, €3 billion has been invested in tertiary (non-residential) assets. Taking into account certain transactions pending completion, we expect to see investment of close to €5 billion during the first half of the year, around €1 billion less than during the same period in 2017”, he predicts.

Casanova

The divestment of this logistics warehouse comes just weeks after Trinitario Casanova entered the Madrid Nuevo Norte real estate project (known as Operación Chamartín). The businessman has committed to pay €400 million to the initial owners for the rights to 1.2 million m2 of land (now in the hands of the Ministry of Development) where the company DCN, controlled by BBVA and SanJosé, is planning to build an urban development with more than 10,500 homes.

In addition, Casanova is working on the marketing of the future shopping arcade in Edificio España, the property that he purchased from Wanda for €172 million to immediately sell it on to the RIU hotel group.

Original story: Expansión (by Rocío Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

B&B Hotels Spain Revenues in Spain at 13 Million Euros in 1H17

22 August 2017

The hotel company has boosted its sales thanks to the acquisition of Sidorme Hotels in October 2016, together with the launch of new hotels such as the B&B Hotel Puerta del Sol in Madrid and the B&B Hotel Vigo.

The hotel group has quintupled it sales with this result

B&B Hotels, the hotel chain which specializes in offering comfortable accommodations with high-quality design and services, has quintupled its revenues in Spain in the first six months of this year compared to the same period in 2016, thanks to the 20 hotels the group operates in Spain.

The acquisition of Sidorme Hotels in October 2016, together with the launch of new hotels such as the B&B Hotel Puerta del Sol in Madrid and the B & B Hotel Vigo, haves boosted the group’s revenues above 13 million euros in the first half of the year.

This increase has had a positive impact on the hotel’s general operating profits, which have improved by 18 percentage points, leading Ebitda for the same period of 2016 to increase by a factor of fifteen, reaching 3.4 million euros in the period.

B&B hotels also obtained a 57% improvement in RevPar, with both occupancy (OCC) increasing by 45%, and the average price (ADR) by 9%.

Operating on a rental basis

In the first half of the year, the chain also sold the eight hotels it owned outright to the French fund Corum Asset Management so that all its hotels are operated on a rental basis.

“This is an excellent start for the first half of 2017, and we intend to improve our results even more by the end of the year. In 2016, the B&B Group registered the highest growth in the budget hotel sector, with a 15% increase, driven largely by the Iberian market, which further strengthened the confidence our shareholders and financial partners. We must take advantage of our good financial health to continue growing both in the Spanish market and in the Portuguese market with the medium-term intention of reaching the 40 hotels between the two countries. To achieve this goal, we will always offer our guests quality accommodations at an unbeatable price throughout Europe,” Jairo González, general manager of Spain and Portugal for B&B Hotels, stated.

B&B Hotels was the fastest growing independent hotel chain in Europe in 2016, reaching around 400 hotels in total, with 33,600 rooms and 6.8 million overnight stays.

The establishments are spread between France (254 hotels), Germany (93), Italy (25) and Spain (20). The company also operates five hotels in Poland, one in Morocco and another in the Czech Republic, and is expected to open units in Switzerland, Belgium, Austria and Brazil in the coming months.

The group intends to increase its network to 600 hotels by 2020, reaching some 50,000 rooms.

Original Story: agenttravel.es

Translation: Richard Turner

Foreign Socimis Arrive In Spain To Compete With The Locals

10 June 2016 – El Economista

Spain’s Socimis have come face to face with a new competitor. The appeal of the real estate sector has brought their foreign counterparts to Spain; they are interested in the same type of assets and some are even willing to assume more risk.

Although their arrival will generate more competition between the Spanish vehicles, the truth is that this news is being welcomed by all players in the sector, as they consider it to be yet another sign that the market is entering a new phase of its recovery.

The first to arrive in Spain following the crisis were the French, operating through SCPI (Société Civile de Placements Immobiliers); they are now ready to close transactions with more risk. Nevertheless, the experts in the sector indicate that it won’t be long before other more core profiles arrive, such as the British, Dutch and Americans.

The Socimi Actipierre Europe has already taken its first steps in Spain with two operations amounting to around €25 million. The firm, which focuses solely on commercial assets and is able to make 40% of its investments outside of France (but within the European Union) acquired the Tres Caminos Retail Park in Puerto Real (Cádiz).

According to sources in the sector, the transaction value amounted to approximately €14.5 million. The retail park has a constructed surface area of 20,270 sqm and 820 parking spaces.

The French Socimi, which has a market capitalisation of €430 million and was created in September 2007, has also purchased a retail outlet leased to MediaMarkt in the Les Gavarres de Tarragone Retail Park.

The vendor of that asset was Corum Asset Management, which had owned the property since 2013. In just three years, it generated gains of almost 50% on its capital investment. The Socimi, advised by Invesco, has paid €9.7 million, whilst Corum paid €7.4 million at the time with a return of 8.1%. In addition, Corum received two years worth of rental income.

These kinds of transactions are attracting a lot of attention from other international investors, which see significant opportunities to generate gains from Spanish assets in just a few years. As a result, experts predict that there will be quite a few operations in Spain over the coming months, financed by capital from France.

Favourable context

The experts also say that with interest rates at 0% “and the volatility of the Asian and European stock markets, investor interest in real estate assets has increased even further”. As such, “the combination of surplus liquidity and the return of possible operations involving prime assets, which are now appearing in the market, could accelerate the arrival of these vehicles”.

The experts highlight another statistic that is very interesting for investors – the fact that the yield on non prime assets in secondary cities has decreased from 8.12% to 6.50% in about two years, a compression that is already very similar to that seen in the case of prime products in the major cities, such as Barcelona and Madrid.

This situation favours the arrival of investment in Spain and softens the impact being generated by the political uncertainty in the country.

Original story: El Economista (by Alba Brualla)