Tag: creditors’ bankruptcy

The Reuben Brothers Complete the Purchase of Santander’s HQ for €283M

14 January 2019 – El Periódico

Commercial Court number 9 in Madrid has decided that the best offer for the acquisition of Santander’s Ciudad Financiera, is the one presented by the brothers Simon and David Reuben through their investment arm in Spain, Sorlinda Investment, which bid a fixed amount of €283.73 million.

The administration responsible for the liquidation procedure of the company Marme Inversiones 2007, which is the owner of the Cantabrian bank’s headquarters, asked the Commercial Court to declare the offer presented by Sorlinda Investment as the winner after concluding that its bid was the best. In 2014, Marme Inversiones filed for creditors’ bankruptcy in light of its inability to repay the €1.575 billion loan that it had used to purchase the property from Banco Santander itself.

A few months ago, Banco Santander filed a series of allegations when it was announced that Sorlinda had won the bid. It questioned the entity in terms of the forecasts made in the liquidation plan, and because it considered that the offer submitted by the Reuben brothers did not fulfil the established requirements. The allegations were made by the banking group as creditor and offeror.

Nevertheless, the Commercial Court of Madrid explained that the execution of the liquidation plan, which regulates the procedures to be followed for the realisation of the assets, corresponds to the insolvency administration.

“The report presented explains the procedure followed for the selection of the bids submitted and the actions carried out by the insolvency administration, specifying that there are no justifications whatsoever to question it”, said the ruling, which states that the purpose of the plan is to obtain the greatest value from the asset for the benefit of all of the creditors.

In this way, despite the allegations presented by Ana Botín’s bank, the insolvency administration considers that, from an economic point of view, the offer presented by Sorlinda is the best for covering the loans of all of the creditors in the group.

The Reuben brothers, owners of other large assets

Reuben Brothers is a private investment group specialising in real estate development and debt financing. The company, created by two British brothers of Indian origin, is considered as one of the most exclusive in the world with several privileged properties in its portfolio, such as The Curtain and Members Club in Shoreditch, one of the most well-known luxury hotels in London, and Lingfield Park Marriott Hotel & Country Club.

It is also the owner of the London Oxford airport in Kidlington, the Wellington Pub Company chain of clubs and the Italian marina Portosole Sanremo, amongst others.

Ana Botín’s entity agreed the sale of its head offices in Boadilla del Monte to Marme Inversiones 2007 on 12 September 2008 for €1.904 billion.

Nevertheless, Marme Inversiones 2007 filed for creditors’ bankruptcy in 2014, before the Court then initiated the coordinated liquidation plan in October 2015 (…).

Original story: El Periódico

Translation: Carmel Drake

Habitat Completes the Purchase of 4 Plots of Land for €14M

21 December 2018 – Eje Prime

Habitat is also going Christmas shopping. The property developer, in which Bain Capital holds a stake, is going to complete the acquisition of four plots of land next week, with a combined investment of €14 million, according to a statement from José Carlos Saz (pictured below), the CEO of the company, speaking to Eje Prime.

With these transactions, the company is planning to end the year with €127 million of investment in the acquisition of buildable land for the construction of 2,800 homes. “We have exceeded the forecasts that we announced in October”, said the Executive, who also added that the company has focused its efforts beyond “the areas where everyone else is building, such as the Costa del Sol, Madrid and Levante”, especially during the final stage of the year.

Proof of that includes two of its latest land purchases: one in Sevilla, announced yesterday and involving the acquisition of two plots, and the other in Oviedo, which has resulted in the company’s debut in Asturias. “We have no predilection for any city or region in particular, rather we expand to wherever there is demand and we can generate returns on our investment”, said the director.

Rigour and realism are the two factors that are governing this new phase for the property developer, which starred in Spain’s second largest bankruptcy proceeding in 2008. “The arrival of Bain Capital has represented a critical boost for the re-launch of the company”, confessed Saz. In fact, the company aims to invest €500 million in the purchase of land across the country between now and 2021.

Despite the property developer’s ambitious plans, its CEO clarified that its objectives do not include “becoming one of the largest firms” or being the company that sells the most homes. In this sense, the executive confirmed that “under no circumstances”, does his firm want to return to having a workforce of 900 workers, like it did with the first Habitat. For Saz, the ideal team would comprise around 130 people, 77 of which have already been recruited during 2018.

Similarly, expansion into Portugal does not form one of the company’s objectives either. In fact, Habitat has opted for a policy of divesting the assets located overseas that it inherited from its first phase.

Challenges (…)

For  José Carlos Saz, the major challenges facing the property developer sector at the moment are the lack of buildable land, the increase in construction costs and the need to finish professionalising and standardising the industry (…).

By the end of 2018, Habitat’s land portfolio will comprise a surface area of 1.1 million m2, with capacity for the construction of 10,000 homes. Currently, the company has 33 developments under construction, corresponding to 3,000 homes in total. Of those, 800 units are in the construction phase and the rest are in the planning phase. This year, the company has started to market 1,700 homes and has handed over 270 residential assets distributed across three developments.

Original story: Eje Prime (by Berta Seijo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Solvia & Sareb Sell the Fbex Towers in Canet for €12M

3 December 2018 – Levante EMV

The property developer Flor Azahar Real Estate has reached an agreement with the Company for the Management of Assets proceeding from the Restructuring of the Banking System (Sareb) and Solvia to purchase the two 19-storey towers in Canet (Valencia) for €12 million. The towers are in the middle of being constructed following the burst of the real estate bubble, according to reports from Expansión. Construction of the properties, a skeleton that currently comprises 14 storeys, has been suspended since the property developer responsible for their construction filed for creditors’ bankruptcy with just 25% of the project executed. The original plans involved the construction of two 20-storey towers, joined at the top.

The original property developers were the Catalan firm Fbex and Caja España. The property developer Flor Azahar Real Estate has joined forces with the US fund Oak Hill to carry out this project. The new development will involve the construction of 19-storeys with 276 homes in total and a budget of €42 million. The plot has a buildability of 25,133 m2.

Original story: Levante EMV (by J.B.)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Plans are Afoot to Refloat Marbella’s Former Incosol as a Hotel

26 November 2018 – Diario Sur

It is one of Marbella’s historical tourism buildings, it has been closed since 2013, and for years the most famous of the famous passed through its doors. It is the Incosol. Now, five years after it definitively closed its doors when its last owners filed for creditor bankruptcy, something is starting to move in the great establishment, located to the East of the town and surrounded by gardens and unbeatable views.

According to information obtained by this newspaper, Hotel Value Added Primera, linked to the subsidiary that the Sabadell Group used to acquire the building in 2017, is studying the feasibility of refloating the property as a hotel. For that, it has made contact with the local Administration to consider, in the first instance, the possibilities that the plans would have from an urban planning point of view. In theory, the plans involve a hotel project without the healthcare features that the iconic Incosol used to offer.

Although no specific plans have been presented to the Town Hall yet, the Urban Planning department has started to evaluate the investors’ proposals. From the outset, the exclusive hotel use would require a modification of the elements of the General Urban Plan (PGOU) in force, that of 1986. For the time being, the case is being studied technically.

The sources consulted by this newspaper underline that the urban development plan reflects that this land “would not form part of the municipality’s healthcare model”, which would open the door to the proposed change. In any case, and with the aim of understanding the feasibility of the idea presented to the Municipal Administration, the investors are not taking any risks and have resorted to those who best know the urban development plan in force, namely, the team that drafted the PGOU of 1986.

Since the hotel’s closure in 2012, and after many incarnations in the courts, last year, it was the Sabadell Group, through its real estate subsidiary, who took ownership of the property and the brand. Just a few weeks ago, the doors of the old hotel were opened again to clear the facilities of all of the furniture and furnishings that had been left intact since its closure and which have now been donated to Cáritas (…).

The legendary spa of the jet set of the 1970s and 1980s in Marbella (through whose doors passed Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Sean Connery, Rainiero of Mónaco and Camilo José Cela, amongst others) closed in 2013, on one of the saddest days in its history, since it opened its doors in 1973. The failure led to a creditors bankruptcy (…). And after much to-ing and fro-ing, in the end, one of its creditors, Sabadell, acquired the establishment a year ago.

If the plans of the investor group interested in recovering the property – which are still in a very early phase – come to fruition, Marbella could include the mythical Incosol in its list of new luxury establishments after the upcoming arrival of the prestigious Four Seasons, the arrival of W Marbella and the re-opening of the former Don Miguel establishment, thus confirming the growing interest in investing in the city, especially to create new tourist infrastructure.

Original story: Diario Sur (by Mónica Pérez)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Proinsa: The Final Piece of Reyal Urbis’ Empire Files for Bankruptcy

12 February 2018 – El Confidencial

Proinsa, Promotora Inmobiliaria del Este, has filed for creditor bankruptcy. The company is chaired by Rafael Santamaria, who, together with Joaquín Rivero, Enrique Bañuelos, Luis Portillo and Manuel Jove, were the property “lords” of the last real estate boom. Santamaría was also the President of Reyal Urbis, which starred in the second-largest dissolution ever of a real estate company in 2016, after that of Martinsa Fadesa.

Specifically, Reyal Urbis, which filed for its own creditor bankruptcy last summer, controls 70% of the company Proinsa, which is also dedicated to real estate development. Moreover, the two firms share a registered address on the Madrilenian street of Calle Ayala, just 50m from Paseo de la Castellana, where Rafael Santamaría Trigo, who also used to serve as the President of the Property Developers of Madrid (Asprima), used to have his office.

Last week, Mercantile Court number 1 of Madrid declared that Proinsa had filed for bankruptcy with a debt of almost €62 million and assets worth around €57 million, after it had withdrawn from a refinancing agreement in the middle of December 2016. In fact, that company’s short-term debt amounts to €34 million, of which €10 million corresponds to debt with various financial institutions and €21.5 million to Sareb. On the other hand, it has short-term debt amounting to €21.6 million with group companies. Moreover, at the end of 2016, the firm’s losses amounted to €1.1 million, and it held negative equity of almost €5 million.

In addition to Reyal Urbis, the firm’s minority shareholders include several companies from Burgos that form part of the same group: Inmobiliaria Espolón, Promotora Fuente Redonda, Grupo Río Vena Gestión de Obras and Alqlunia 2.

Proinsa held onto just one asset: a plot of land under development in Los Berrocales, one of the developments in the southeast of Madrid that was blocked by the Town Hall of Madrid fifteen days ago. Specifically, it owned 75% of an estate (La Fortuna) with a fair value of €57.1 million at the end of 2016, according to a valuation performed by Knight Frank. A single syndicated mortgage loan was secured over that estate from Sareb, Banco CEISS, Banco Mare Nostrum, Ibercaja and Unicaja, and with EBN Banco de Negocios acting as the agent bank. That loan was constituted in December 2006 and was subsequently novated on three occasions until the end of 2014. Moreover, in terms of unforeseen costs, Proinsa owed €6.5 million to the Compensation Board of Los Berrocales.

Almost half a century dedicated to real estate

The real estate businesses of the Santamaría family date back to 1970. As Nacho Cardero recounts in his novel “The Property Lords”, Reyal Urbis was constituted in March of that year by the current Chairman’s father, Rafael Santamaría Moreno, owner of the Layer Farm in Pinto, dedicated to the wholesale of eggs. “The laying hens were exchanged for cranes and the company turned the company on its head, changing its name to Reyal, which is Layer written backwards”.

The small construction firm would become one of the largest property developers in the country, after it purchased Urbis from Banesto in July 2006 for €3.3 billion, at the height of the real estate boom (…).

Until last week, Proinsa was the final piece at the base of that real estate emporium. And that final piece in the house of cards left many cards along the way, such as the ghost city of Valdeluz, just 67km from Puerta del Sol, in the province of Guadalajara and another symbol, alongside Seseña (Toledo) (…) of the excesses of the real estate party (…).

Original story: El Confidencial (by Elena Sanz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Property Developer Cerquia Files for Creditor Bankruptcy with €50M Debt

7 February 2018 – Eje Prime

Cerquia Gestión has succumbed to creditor bankruptcy. The Spanish property developer, which has accumulated debt of more than €50 million, has been declared bankrupt today in the commercial court of first instance in Guadalajara.

With housing developments in progress in Guadalajara, Málaga, Valencia, Benasque, as well as in Lisbon and Estoril (Portugal), Cerquia held company assets of €46 million according to its most recently available annual accounts, for 2016, and reported by Crónica Global.

Created in 2006, the real estate asset manager owns a portfolio of seven office buildings for rent, located in Madrid, Lisbon and Guadalajara. Led by Carlos and Nuria Cercadillo, the property developer was created as the result of an alliance between several real estate professionals.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Sevilla’s Chamber of Commerce Completes Sale of 2 Plots to Helena Rivero

2 November 2017 – ABC de Sevilla

This week, according to sources consulted by ABC, Sevilla’s Chamber of Commerce has sold two plots of land next to the Antares Club and on the Eusa campus to the family of the Jerez businessman Joaquín Rivero, who died in September 2016. The operation was agreed in November 2016 but was subject to the obtaining of municipal licences for the various projects. On the Eusa land, Helena Rivero’s investor group plans to build a university hall of residence for 400 students. Next to Antares, Helena Rivero is still deciding what to do with the 1,700 m2 plot, which has permission for the construction of a hotel given that it has been allocated for tertiary use.

In this way, the Chamber of Commerce, chaired by Francisco Herrero, will obtain a sizeable liquidity injection thanks to an operation that was closed for around €7.5 million. The negotiations for the sale of these plots were initiated by Joaquín Rivero Valcarce, the real estate businessman who chaired Bami. Following the death of the businessman in 2016, his only daughter, Helena, decided to push ahead with the operation.

Nevertheless, the sale of the two plots in question was subject to the Town Hall of Sevilla granting the necessary authorisations to build on the Eusa and Antares plots. Once municipal authorisation had been obtained to build a university hall of residence on Eusa’s plot, which has been allocated for social/educational use, the sale of the land was closed this week, according to the same sources. The sale had previously received the green light from the plenary of the Chamber of Commerce and the Junta de Andalucía, which oversees the region’s chambers of commerce.

A multi-national firm will operate the hall of residence

In terms of the university residence planned for Eusa, the plot sold to Helena Rivero’s investor group has a surface area of 2,200 m2 and permission to build up to 11,000 m2. According to sources consulted by ABC, a leading European multi-national in the hall of residence sector, which is listed on the stock market, will take over the operation of the building.

The other plot, measuring 1,700 m2 has been allocated for tertiary use – it is currently home to the exhibition hall, auditorium and parking lot of the Antares sports centre. On that plot, the company managed by the Rivero family may be able to build a hotel with a maximum buildable area of 6,000 m2, equivalent to around 100 rooms.

The hotel was promoted initially by Antares and it was precisely that project that led the company to file for creditors’ bankruptcy when the real estate bubble burst and it was unable to refinance a mortgage loan that it had requested from La Caixa in 2008 to build a four-star establishment in El Porvenir. Antares Andalucía had managed to reclassify the 1,740m2 plot, and so it was valued at €10.2 million in 2007.

In the end, the mercantile judge authorised the sale of the assets of the Antares Club, with their charges and levies, as well as of the brands “Antares Andalucía” and “Encuentros 2000”, to the Chamber of Commerce – through Eusa. The Chamber spent €4 million on the operation, including taking on a €3.2 million mortgage with CaixaBank.

With this sale of the two plots, the Chamber of Commerce will now have sufficient revenues to undertake projects in its two business units: Eusa and the Antares Club. The Chamber of Commerce plans to completely renovate the Antares Club, given that it is more than 30 years ago, and move its training activities to the SGAE building in La Cartuja. That building has a surface area of 35,000 m2, including an auditorium measuring 22,000 m2.

Original story: ABC de Sevilla (by M. J. Pereira)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Reyal Urbis Records Losses Of €34M In Q1 2017

4 May 2017 – Expansión

The property developer Reyal Urbis has presented its results for the first quarter of 2017. During that period, the company, which is chaired by its largest shareholder, Rafael Santamaría (pictured above), generated revenues of €8.9 million, up by 2% compared to the same quarter in 2016. Nevertheless, it recorded losses of €34.35 million during the same period, down by 15%.

The results for the first quarter are the first set that the company has presented after it obtained approval, on 30 March, and following an appeal, for its proposed arrangement, through which it hopes to emerge from the creditors’ bankruptcy in which it has been immersed since February 2013. Four years ago, the property developer was involved in the second largest bankruptcy ever registered in Spain (the first largest was recorded by its competitor Martinsa Fadesa) with debt of around €4,000 million.

The proposal to emerge from bankruptcy, which was first presented in 2015 and then modified by legal requirements, includes the payment of the debt to its banking creditors using assets, to which a discount of more than 80% would be applied. Following the exchange, the property developer would reserve a portfolio of its best assets, including one shopping centre and several hotel establishments, which it would continue to operate if it were to overcome the bankruptcy.

In the case of the Tax Authorities, to which Reyal Urbis owes more than €400 million, the real estate company proposes the complete payment of the liability over the long-term. The creditors have until 30 May, the final deadline, to sign up to this agreement. The bankruptcy administration of the real estate company is being managed by BDO.

Reyal Urbis’ large creditors include Santander and Sareb. In the case of the public entity, an official decision has not been taken yet and the proposal is currently being evaluated. According to Reyal Urbis’ own records, the debt with Sareb amounts to €1,099 million. (…).

The agreement proposal requires approval by 75% of the syndicated lenders and 50% of the ordinary lenders, according to the bankruptcy law in force. (…).

As at 31 March 2017, the group’s liabilities amounted to more than €4,660 million, of which €3,900 million corresponded to debt with financial institutions (including Sareb), more than €122 million represented payments due to suppliers and another €480 million was owed to non-trade creditors.

According to Knight Frank, the group’s real estate assets are worth €1,170 million, of which €191 million correspond to rental assets. Ten years ago, Rafael Santamaría’s real estate company valued the entity’s portfolio at €10,500 million. (…).

Original story: Expansión (by Rocío Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

InTempo Case: Judge Ratifies Sareb As Privileged Creditor

16 February 2017 – Diario Información

The ruling dismisses claims made by companies and individuals in the bankruptcy of Olga Urbana, by stating that the bad bank was not responsible for administering the company.

“The engagement of Suasor was justified by the circumstances of the construction work” and “there is no evidence” that that company, Abanca or Sareb acted as de facto administrators. The judge of Commercial Court number 1 in Alicante has dismissed three claims, made by companies and professionals that participated in the construction of the InTempo building in Benidorm, and has rejected the possibility of revoking Sareb’s status as a privileged creditor. This decision, which according to sources close to proceedings could still be appealed, opens the way for the so-called bad bank to end up being awarded ownership of the tallest skyscraper in the tourist city. Construction of the skyscraper is currently suspended, pending resolution of the liquidation process in which its developer, the company, Olga Urbana, is immersed.

The ruling, to which this newspaper had access yesterday, is uncompromising given that it does not reflect the claims of the minority creditors. By contrast, it attributes the exhaustive control exerted by the financial entities involved, Abanca – formerly Caixa Galicia – and Sareb – which inherited the loan due to a legal mandate to free Abanca from its toxic assets – through Suasor, to the situation in which the construction of this concrete giant found itself, which meant that engaging an external company to control and verify how the project was being managed was completely “justified”. (…).

Background

The incidental claims that the judge has now dismissed were filed by Kono Estructuras, a company that participated in the construction work and which is represented in the creditors’ bankruptcy to claim the payment of just over €1 million; the architect Robert Pérez Guerras, who also demanded the payment of a debt amounting to €133,019 for fees that he failed to receive when he left the Project Management team; and Isidro Bononat. All of them challenged the list of creditors prepared by the bankruptcy administrator, on the basis that Sareb, which is claiming the payment of just over €108 million, should not be accorded the status of privileged credit, but rather should rank as a subordinated creditor, given that it served as a de facto administrator of Olga Urbana and therefore, should assume some of the responsibility for its bankruptcy. (…).

The ruling from Commercial Court number 1 is clear. It states that the engagement of an external supervisor is “normal” in high-profile developments, such as the case of InTempo and that, in this case, Suasor limited its scope to controlling the progress of the construction work, and did not interfere the internal operations of the construction company.

Progress towards liquidation

This ruling represents another step forward in the InTempo liquidation process and, moreover, opens an important avenue in Sareb’s favour. The open auction to sell the building received just two bids: one for €47 million and the other for €52 million, which was ruled out because it arrived 20 days late. Both bids fell well below the appraisal value of the property, €90 million, and so Sareb, as a privileged creditor, submitted its own offer of €58.5 million, to be awarded the building. The claims paralysed that process but now that they have been resolved, all indications are that it may be reactivated.

Original story: Diario Information (by R. Pagés)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Saint Croix Acquires Blanco Store On c/Goya For €15M

13 February 2017 – Eje Prime

Saint Croix, the Socimi owned by the Colomer family, has won the bid to acquire the Blanco store located on Calle Goya in Madrid. The company has spent €15 million on the premises, which several other investors, including Jesús Antúnez, also bid for. Antúnez came close to winning, but Saint Croix took the prize in the end.

The Socimi owned by the Colomer family (which also owns the real estate developer Pryconsa) has spent €15.25 million acquiring the property, which has a gross leasable area of 863 m2. In other words, it has paid a price equivalent to more than 17,600/m2. The company has also acquired two parking spaces as part of the operation.

Until now, the premises were owned by the real estate arm of the former owner of the Madrilenian chain Blanco (which specialises in fashion retail), namely, Inversiones Blasol. The company, whose administrator is Bernardo Blanco Moreno (son of the founder of the Blanco fashion chain) and which was constituted in 19991 with the corporate purpose of leasing real estate assets, filed for voluntary creditors’ bankruptcy in December 2014 in Commercial Court number 10 of Madrid. The company is now in the middle of negotiating its bankruptcy arrangement.

Inversiones Blasol has several other assets up for sale, including a store on Calle Pelai, 1 in Barcelona. That establishment has a commercial area of 200 m2. Jesús Antúnez also bid for those premises, and sources consulted by Eje Prime report that he offered €4 million.

According to the most recent results filed by the company, as at 30 September 2016, the Socimi had a portfolio comprising 209 assets, worth €339.26 million. They include retail premises, such as the Zara store on Conde de Peñalver (Madrid) and several supermarkets leased to Día; office buildings such as CLH’s headquarters on Calle Titán; and several four- and five-star hotels on Isla Canela (Huelva), managed by chains such as Iberostar, Meliá and Barceló.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake