Tag: Elaia Investment Spain

Socimi Elaia Buys a Hotel in Mallorca for €5.7M

23 April 2018 – Eje Prime

Elaia Investment Spain is growing through purchases. The Socimi has acquired a hotel in Mallorca for a total value of €5.7 million, according to a statement filed by the group with the Alternative Investment Market. The asset acquired is Hotel Valparaiso, an establishment spanning 2,400 m2 on a plot measuring 4,400 m2, located on the seafront in Cala Murada, Manacor (Mallorca).

This represents Elaia Investment Spain’s sixth asset in the Balearic Islands. The hotel is located on the east of the island, on a cliff top, 17km from the underground lake in the Drach Caves and 3.5 nautical miles from Portocolom.

Elaia is a Socimi focusing primarily on the tourist accommodation sector (87% of its assets), whilst the rest of its portfolio comprises residential assets. Following this acquisition, the Socimi now owns 15 assets in total: two residential buildings in Madrid, seven tourist apartment complexes, five hotels and one project under development.

Batipart is currently the majority shareholder of Elaia, in which it holds a 66% stake. The other shares are distributed between 22 shareholders including Euler Hermès Reinsurance (13.81%), Allianz Invest Pierre (9.21%), managed by Immovalor Gestion, and other individual and corporate shareholders with minority stakes.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Housing: The Bastion of the Socimis on the MAB

14 December 2017  – Expansión 

More than fifteen of the listed Socimis have residential properties in their portfolios. Alternative assets are also sneaking into the portfolios of many of the companies that trade on the MAB.

Homes, offices, hotels, shops, warehouses, land under development, health centres, student halls and even gas stations. The 44 Socimis that are currently listed on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB) are involved in the rental of all kind of assets, but housing is the star for these listed vehicles, which currently hold more than €12.22 billion in their portfolios and capitalise €6.835 million.

In this way, in contrast to the scarce presence of rental housing owned by the vehicles listed on the main stock exchange, housing accounts for 21.9% of the portfolios of the Socimis on the MAB. Specifically, of the firms specialising in residential, a few stand out: Fidere – the Socimi owned by Blackstone which made its stock market debut in 2015 with 2,688 social housing properties purchased during the crisis – and Colón – and rental housing Socimi controlled by Azora, which debuts on the stock market in June. Altogether, 16 companies have residential assets in their portfolios, according to data from Armabex.

After housing, offices account for 20.4% of the assets in the Socimis’ portfolios, followed by shopping centres (14.2%), shops (13.9%), industrial warehouses (6.3%) and hotels (5.7%).

In terms of geographical distribution, Madrid leads the investment by Socimis, with €5.684 billion – 46.5% of the total -, whilst Barcelona accounts for 11.2%, with €1.364 billion. The other assets – €4.34 billion – are located across the rest of Spain.

In terms of the investor profile, the main stars on the MAB are non-resident, accounting for 55.1% of the assets incorporated. In 2017, seven Socimis owned by non-resident investors joined the MAB, with assets worth €1.388 billion.

Trends

For Antonio Fernández, President of Armabex, the trend over the next few months will be characterised by fragmentation and specialisation. For example, of the 17 new companies listed in 2017, two specialise in hotels –Bay Hotels & Leisure (the Socimi owned by Hispania and Barceló, which made its debut in the summer) and Elaia Investment Spain (previously Eurosic Investment Spain, which debuted in November)-, one owns gas stations – Kingbook Inversiones –, and more recently, one specialises in industrial warehouses – P3 Spain Logistic –.

The latter is a Socimi of Socimis, in other words, a Socimi that controls 100% of another company of the same kind, which is not listed but which has the same obligations and tax benefits as a regular Socimi. “46% of all Socimis own other non-listed Socimis. It is a structure that is used a lot when it comes to constituting asset portfolios. It allows companies to be sold and new shareholders to enter individually”.

In this company structure context, we are also starting to see investors crossing between Socimis. In this way, for example, the Singapore fund features in the share capital of P3 Spain Logistic and GMP. Similarly, the financial institutions have bet on this vehicle for their real estate assets. In this way, Banca March will debut a Socimi that owns the ABC Serrano shopping centre, which it acquired from CBRE Global Investors in June, and Sareb is preparing for the debut of Témpore Properties.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

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

The Ruggieri Family Buys Eurosic’s Spanish Socimi

18 October 2017 – El Confidencial

One of the wealthiest families in France has set its sights on Spain’s tourism market. The Ruggieri family, owner of the Batipart Group, reached an agreement in August with the also French firm Eurosic to purchase the Socimi that that firm had created in Spain, and has now renamed the entity Elaia Investment Spain.

After taking over 66% of the vehicle, Batipart has put all of the wheels in motion to enable the company to make its debut on the stock market before the end of the year, just like its previous owner had planned.

In this new business venture, Ruggieri is accompanied by Euler Hermès, owner of 13.81% of the Socimi; Allianz Invest Pierra, owner of another 9.21%; and around twenty individual investors who own the remainder of the share capital.

Elaia owns twelve real estate assets in Spain, primarily hotels and tourist apartments, although it also owns two residential properties in Madrid, on the centric streets Bailén and Atocha.

The Socimi focuses on three-and four-star category hotels and on taking advantage of the boom in tourist apartments. It owns two assets of each type in Mallorca and a hotel and two apartment blocks in Málaga, whilst, in Cataluña, it owns a hotel in Roses (Gerona), one tourist rental building in Barcelona and another in Estartir (Gerona).

In total, the Socimi has invested €145 million so far acquiring its portfolio, although its objective is to reach €280 million. To that end, it is currently holding talks with various investors, whose contributions will range between €10 million and €30 million.

When it debuts on the MAB, Elaia expects to have a market capitalisation of €120 million, a figure that will make it one of the largest Socimis on the market. The company will be managed by Elaia Management Spain, a subsidiary of Batipart, and the plan is to undertake some of its expansion together with Pierre & Vacances, its main partner in Spain.

The Socimi’s roadmap foresees it continuing with its intense asset acquisition policy for the next year or so, before spending the following two years repositioning those assets. The divestment phase is expected to be activated from 2021 onwards and that strategy is expected to be carried out on an asset by asset basis, culminating in 2024, with a forecast rate of return (IRR) of 15%.

Eurosic-Gecina’s heritage

The Batipart Group was founded in 1988 by Charles Ruggieri, who was born in Italy but who settled in France many years ago, where he is one of the top 100 wealthiest people in the country, with a net worth of around €900 million. A historical shareholder of Eurosic, in June, he agreed to sell his 24% in the real estate company to Gecina, in exchange for taking ownership of all of the leisure, health and hotel assets in the portfolio, including Elaia, worth €463 million in total.

That agreement was signed on 29 August, which is when Batipart took control of the Spanish Socimi. Moreover, the group owned by the Ruggieri family also has a presence in the nursing home sector, through the Korian Group, and it owns six hotels in Africa.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Ruth Ugalde)

Translation: Carmel Drake