Tag: Costa Brava

Stoneweg Finalises Purchase of Land in Madrid from Dragados for €120M

14 December 2018 – Eje Prime

Stoneweg is buying land in Madrid. The Spanish-Swiss investment fund is finalising the purchase of a plot located in the Spanish capital from Dragados for €120 million. The operation, which is expected to close within the next few days, will represent a record in Madrid in terms of the volume of finalist land sold.

The plot spans a total buildable surface area of 45,000 m2 and is located on Paseo de la Dirección, in the Madrilenian district of Tetuán. Stoneweg plans to build two residential-use towers on the site comprising 25-storeys each. The price for the land could amount to around €5,000/m2, according to reports from Expansión.

CBRE has participated in the operation, as advisor to the buyer, whilst Colliers International Spain has advised the vendor. The residential development in Madrid will be added to eight other projects that Stoneweg has underway in Spain, four in Barcelona and another four on the Costa Brava.

The investment platform was created in 2015 by the former private banking real estate team at Edmond de Rothschild and by the founding partners of CBRE in Switzerland. Currently, the fund is chaired by Claude Messulam and its management team includes Jaume Sabater as the CEO and Joaquín Castellví, as the Director of Investment and Acquisitions.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Stoneweg Plans to Build New Homes in Barcelona & along the Costa Brava

10 October 2018 – Eje Prime

Stoneweg is continuing to grow its portfolio of projects in Cataluña. The Spanish-Swiss fund is strongly committed to the territory and has already announced new developments in Barcelona and the Costa Brava.

Two of the most important projects are going to be developed on two prime streets in the centre of Barcelona, namely Rambla Catalunya and Pau Claris. The company led by Joaquín Castellví and Jaume Sabater declined to share more details about these future homes, according to Expansión. The real estate company is going to unveil the two developments at the next Barcelona Meeting Point, which will be held in the Catalan capital between 25th and 28th October.

Meanwhile, in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, the fund is going to build two towers containing 276 homes on the site of the former Cosme Toda factory, a plan that was announced in March, when a €370 million investment plan was registered to build 800 new homes in Cataluña.

The sought-after 22@ district for the office market is also of interest to the company, which is planning a development on Calle Llull. In the meantime, on the Costa Brava, Stoneweg has started projects in the residential market in Palamós, Platja d’Aro, Roses and Begur.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Lucas Fox: Luxury House Prices Rose by 18% in Q1

23 April 2018 – Eje Prime

Luxury homes in Spain are becoming increasingly more expensive. The luxury residential market saw the value of prime homes increase by 18% during the first quarter of this year. The average price paid during the 3 months to March for these kinds of properties amounted to €924,000, significantly more than the €780,000 recorded by this exclusive branch of the segment during the same period last year, according to data from Lucas Fox.

The strong performance of the Spanish economy in recent times is once again stimulating demand from domestic and overseas investors to purchase homes in the country, above all along the coast and in the major cities.

According to the report from the real estate agency specialising in luxury homes, Marbella and Sitges are the most prime area of this market, and they are monopolising business along the coastlines on which they are located, the Costa del Sol and Costa Brava, respectively.

In the case of Marbella, the city accounted for 67% of the sales that were completed in the region, whilst on the most southerly coast of Cataluña, Sitges accounted for half of all the business on the Costa Brava. “We saw a tremendous rate of growth in sales in Girona and its coastline during the first quarter of 2018”, said Tom Maidment, Director of Lucas Fox Prime.

Foreign investors account for 13% of the prime market  

“International buyers of second homes have been more active, with a notable increase in the number of British buyers”, explained Maidment. In this regard, the director added that “confidence in the market and in the Spanish economy has been consolidated and concerns over Catalan independence have disappeared”.

In total, in 2017, 13% of the purchases undertaken in the luxury residential sector in Spain were made by overseas investors, who acquired 61,000 homes, almost as many as the 65,000 properties bought by foreigners in 2007.

By nationality, the British were the most active buyers, accounting for 15% of the sales made by foreigners, followed by the French, 8.6%; and the Germans, which accounted for 7.8% of the acquisitions of this type of luxury real estate by foreigners.

In the case of Lucas Fox, 77% of the operations that the agency closed during the first quarter of the year related to international clients, most of whom came from the United Kingdom, but also from neighbouring France, the Scandinavian countries and the USA.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

The Vilella Family Puts its ‘Helios Hotels’ Portfolio up for Sale for €110M

9 January 2018 – Eje Prime

The Spanish hotel sector is starting 2018 in the same way that it closed 2017, with negotiations for the sale of portfolios. Whilst during the final days of last year, the sector witnessed the sale of HI Partners, which was sold by Sabadell to Blackstone, and the acquisition of all of the shares in the chain Bay by Hispania, January is starting with the placement on the market of Helios Hotels, the chain owned by the Catalan Vilella family and Mehdi Hamila. The objective of the partners is to raise €110 million from the different assets that the company owns in the Balearic Islands, Cataluña, the Community of Valencia and Andalucía.

With 1,000 rooms in total, the Helios portfolio contains four hotels and an aparthotel, although the company is yet to receive an offer that meets its expectations, according to Crónica Global. The hotel chain’s assets comprise: Helios Lloret (Girona), Helios Mallorca, Helios Costa Tropical (Almuñécar, Granada), Helios Benidorm (Alicante) and Apartamentos Helios Mallorca.

The Vilella family is renowned in the hotel sector on the Costa Brava, where, through the family company Turiexpert, it owns the Hotel San Carlos in Roses.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

The Ruggieri Family Acquires a Hotel in Mallorca for €70M

5 December 2017 – Eje Prime

The Ruggieri family is continuing to back Spain. A month after announcing the stock market debut of its Socimi Elaia Investment Spain (EIS), which has been trading on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB) since 2 November, the French family has acquired a hotel in Mallorca for €70 million. The operation has been carried out through Lagune, an investment vehicle specialising in tourist and healthcare real estate assets, which is owned by the clan’s holding company, Grupo Batipart.

The hotel, located in the Mallorcan area of Cala Romántica, has 267 rooms and will be operated by the chain Iberostar. The intention of Lagune is to completely remodel the establishment to increase its category rating and turn it into a four-star property.

The establishment is the first that the investment vehicle has acquired in the hotel sector in Spain, although it already owns 16 healthcare residencies in the country. It purchased those properties at the beginning of this year and entrusts their management to the nursing home firm DomusVi.

Currently, the Ruggieri family controls other assets in Spain, through EIS (in which it holds a 66% stake) in Madrid, Barcelona, the Costa del Sol, Mallorca and the Costa Brava. In Europe, the family office owns a real estate portfolio worth around €1 billion, located in France, Italy, Germany and Spain.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Stoneweg To Convert Former Provincial Court Building Into Luxury Homes

25 October 2017 – Expansión

The real estate investment platform Stoneweg, led by the Spaniards Joaquín Castellví and Jaume Sabater and headquartered in Geneva, has unveiled a new project in Madrid. The firm, which brings together funds from private and institutional investors across Europe, has acquired a building on Calle Ferraz in the Spanish capital where it plans to create a residential development containing 25 luxury homes. Until recently, the property used to house several departments of Madrid’s Provincial Court.

Located in the Argüelles neighbourhood between Calle Princesa and the exclusive Paseo de Pintor Rosales, the building will contain more than twenty homes, with a surface area of between 150 m2, for the smallest flats, to 176 m2 for the penthouses, with 30 m2 of terrace space and 77 m2 of solarium with a private swimming pool.

Construction work is expected to begin in January 2018, for completion at the end of 2019.

The homes will cost between €935,000 and €2.2 million and will include one or two parking spaces each plus a storeroom. The sale of the homes will be led by the estate agency Gilmar.

This is not the only residential project that Stoneweg is currently working on in Spain. The Swiss manager has 30 developments underway at the moment, located in Madrid, Barcelona, Costa del Sol and Costa Brava.

In total, the company has invested around €450 million in various real estate projects across the country and plans to invest a further €250 million. Besides Spain, the manager also has investments in Switzerland, USA and Italy.

Original story: Expansión (by Rocío Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Emilio Cuatrecasas Buys Empordà Golf For €20M

10 July 2017 – Expansión

Emilio Cuatrecasas is continuing his commitment to the Costa Brava. A group of investors led by his holding company, Emesa Corporación, is finalising the purchase of Empordà Golf Resort from Habitat Inmobiliaria for around €20 million. The operation involves two 18-hole golf course in Gualta (Girona) and a hotel complex, which has 87 rooms and which is managed by Double Tree by Hilton.

The resort had awakened interest from other investors, but in the end, the lawyer has taken the lead in the bidding. The operation will now begin a due diligence phase. The group led by Emesa will go on to control 90% of the capital of the sports facility given that the remaining 10% will continue in the hands of numerous small shareholders, who are also members of the golf course.

The complex was constructed in 1996 by the Figueras family – the former owners of Habitat – and, since the beginning, its members have included well-known Catalan business people, such as Emilio Cuatrecasas himself, Pedro Fontana and members of the Puig, Esteve and Uriach families. Besides the hotel, the resort includes a residential area, with rental apartments and homes.

The purchase of Empordà Golf will not see the asset form part of the chain of rural hotels that Emilio Cuatrecasas is promoting in the Empordá region. In 2016, the lawyer announced his intention of launching a new brand specialising in small, high-end hotels and last summer, he completed his first acquisition: a small palace in Ullastret, which he will transform into a hotel after investing €7 million. Although this asset is located in the lawyer’s target region, the hotel at Empordà Golf does not fit with the profile of unique buildings that he is looking for in that case.

Emesa groups together the business and real estate stakes owned by Cuatrecasas and its assets are worth more than €480 million.

Habitat, which is chaired by Bruno Figueras, continues under the control of banks and international funds.

Original story: Expansión (by M. Anglés and J. Orihuel)

Translation: Carmel Drake

ST: Costa Del Sol Accounts For Most New Homes On Mediterranean Coast

25 May 2017 – El Economista

The Costa del Sol is the stretch of the Mediterranean coast where the largest number of new homes for sale can be found, according to a report prepared by ST Sociedad de Tasación, which analyses a total of 67 towns along the coasts of Girona, Tarragona, Alicante, Murcia and Málaga.

ST has analysed 456 new housing developments in total and has identified 5,594 units for sale, along the five coasts analysed. According to the study, the average price of these homes amounts to €210,760.

In fact, the study shows that the coasts that are located towards the South of Spain have the most homes up for sale, compared with the coasts located towards the North, and it reveals that the Málagan coast has a total of 2,482 new homes on the market.

Specifically, the report highlights that along the Costa Brava, Dorada, Blanca, Cálida and del Sol, there are 5,594 new housing units in total, however, they are not distributed in a homogeneous way along these coastlines. In addition to the homes in Málaga, the other dwellings are located in Alicante (2,100 homes), Tarragona (378 homes), Murcia (345 homes) and Girona (279 homes).

ST also said that the supply is unequal within these coastal regions and that Murcia and Málaga are the areas where the available housing supply is distributed in the most balanced way.

The pending supply for sale does not exceed 70% of the properties developed, although that percentage is higher in Altafulla, Cambrils and Cunil, all towns in Tarragona. Along the coasts of Girona and Alicante, only two towns in each one, Blanes and Finestrat, have a volume of supply that is similar to these towns.

The study reflects that there are four coasts with an average house price of between €150,000 and €200,000, whilst in the case of the Costa del Sol, that figure soars to €353,000.

Although on the Costa Dorada and the Costa Cálida, there is not a single dwelling being sold for €500,000, on the Costa del Sol, 287 homes are on the market for that price, accounting for 12% of the total. Moreover, that figure decreases to 4% in the case of the Costa Blanca and 2% on the Costa Brava.

The average surface area of the homes for sale is 112 m2. Nevertheless, the homes on the Costa del Sol exceed that average (145 m2). Meanwhile, the towns on the Costa Brava (100 m2) offer the smallest homes in general, followed by those on the Costa Blanca (102 m2) and the Costa Brava (103 m2).

In terms of the type of home, only 60% of the dwellings on each coast are family homes and almost none of the properties are studios (i.e. few have no bedrooms), given that most homes typically have one or two bedrooms.

Taking into consideration the construction status of the homes, ST has recorded that the majority (60%) of the properties up for sale have already been completed, more than 25% are still under construction and 10% have not been started yet.

Original story: El Economista

Translation: Carmel Drake

Stoneweg Will Invest €750M+ In RE Assets In Spain

26 April 2017 – El Mundo

Stoneweg, the real estate platform created in Switzerland by Jaume Sabater and Joaquín Castellví – specialists in Real Estate following their time at the bank Edmond de Rothschild – has announced the opening of its first two offices in Spain, in Barcelona and Madrid.

In this way, Stoneweg is consolidating its position in the Spanish market, where it has been investing in numerous and diverse real estate developments since 2015. The company has also announced that, over the next few years, it will allocate more than €750 million to investments in Spain, of which €450 million has already been committed to various projects. Specifically, the developments that Stoneweg is already constructing, managing and marketing in Spain – which are due to be delivered between 2017 and 2020 – are located in the urban nuclei of Madrid and Barcelona, the metropolitan rings of both cities and the Mediterranean Coast (Costa Brava, Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol).

In total, the manager is working on more than 1,300 homes across 30 developments, on residential land spanning 200,000 m2 and retail premises, as well as three developments measuring more than 22,000 m2 above ground in several office buildings. The platform has created this sizeable investment portfolio by purchasing properties from the banks, Sareb and private owners.

“We place our trust in Spain due to its power for constant economic growth and its high capacity to attract tourists in search of a second home, as well as for the strengthening of mortgages and the rapid access to them”, explained Joaquín Castellví, Director of Acquisitions at Stoneweg and CEO of Stoneweg Spain. (…).

The manager has signed agreements with some of the main financial entities (Banco Santander, BBVA, La Caixa, Banco Sabadell, Abanca) and strategic partners (Grupo Sorigue, Ferrocarril, Grupo Castellví) with the aim of constituting one of the most robust real estate groups in Europe.

In addition to Spain and Switzerland, the manager led by Sabater and Castellví also has a presence in Italy and the USA, and has an investment capacity of more than €1,400 million in real estate assets across all of its markets (50% of which will be invested in Spain). (…).

Stoneweg’s new offices in Spain, located on Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid, one of the capital’s main thoroughfares, and on Calle Mestre Nicolau, in the heart of Barcelona’s financial district, will employ personnel with an average age of around 32 years old, which means that Stoneweg will be the real estate manager with one of the youngest workforces in the country.

Next month, the platform will participate in Sima (Salón Inmobiliario de Madrid) for the first time, with the aim of promoting, amongst others, the projects that it already has underway in the Spanish capital, especially the developments at the Fresno Norte urbanisation, and on Calles Alfonso X and Mateo Inurria, which are scheduled to be completed by the end of 2017 and/or the beginning of 2018.

Original story: El Mundo

Translation: Carmel Drake

Pierre & Vacances Plans To Double Turnover In Spain By 2020

27 April 2016 – Expansión

The holiday apartment manager and developer, Pierre & Vacances, which has been operating in the Spanish market for 10 years now, has recorded average annual growth of 44% since it launched in Spain in 2005, with a portfolio of 215 apartments. Moreover, it intends to maintain that growth rate over the next few years, and whereby double its presence by 2020.

Specifically, the firm expects to expand its operations from more than 4,000 holiday apartments across 45 complexes in 2016, to 8,000 apartments by 2020, at the same time as doubling its turnover from €50 million to €100 million. In 2016, the group will incorporate five new complexes and 600 apartments. Moreover, it has renovated the Hotel El Puerto in Fuengirola.

Over the last ten years, Pierre & Vacances has invested €70 million in Spain, however, it does not currently own any assets, according to the Chairman of the Spanish subsidiary, José María Pont. One of the group’s business lines involves searching for institutional and private investors willing to purchase real estate assets with lease contracts spanning 10-15 years and returns of between 3.5% and 5% per annum. In addition, the firm has reached agreements with investment funds, which have invested €65 million in assets managed by the firm.

Looking ahead to the future, given the lack of stock in certain areas such as the Costa Brava, Balearic Islands and the Costa del Sol, the group is considering launching projects “from scratch”, including constructing and operating the assets itself. “In certain areas, the circumstances in the market lend themselves to taking on more risk”, says Pont. The Director says that Spain is one of the group’s strategic axes, along with China, where Pierre & Vacances has reached an agreement with HNA to develop five large projects over the next three years.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation: Carmel Drake