Tag: Elix

Elix Vintage Rents Buys a Residential Building in Barcelona for €6M

4 April 2019 – Idealista

Elix Vintage Rents, the Socimi owned by KKR and Elix, has completed the purchase of a residential building in Barcelona for €6 million. The property is located at number 161 Calle Ausias March and its purchase has been partially financed by a loan (€3.2 million) from CaixaBank.

Elix Vintage Rents is a real estate investment vehicle specialising in the acquisition and renovation of residential properties in the centre of Madrid and Barcelona and the rental of homes. It currently owns more than 20 buildings.

Original story: Idealista 

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Deutsche Bank, APG & CBRE GI Enter Spain’s Residential Rental Market

7 December 2018 – Expansión

The large international investors have placed their focus on the residential market and, specifically, on the rental segment. The success of this sector, together with labour mobility, the difficult access to housing and changes in living habits mean that, increasingly, renting is an option over buying in Spain, and that has fuelled interest from capital in the sector.

Blackstone, the largest real estate investor in Spain, was one of the first funds to back the residential rental sector with the purchase of 18 developments comprising 1,860 units from the Municipal Housing and Land Company of Madrid (EMVS) in 2013, but it has not been the only one. The Dutch pension fund APG, in conjunction with Renta Corporación; the German bank Deutsche Bank; and the international fund manager CBRE GI have been some of the most committed investors in this market in recent months.

In this way, APG reached an agreement in the spring of 2017 with the Catalan real estate company Renta Corporación to launch Vivenio, a Socimi specialising in housing, with the aim of acquiring assets worth €1 billion in Madrid, Barcelona and the provincial capitals. The Socimi is going to close a particularly active year for acquisitions, with a total investment of €400 million and is planning to repeat that amount in 2019 to reach a total portfolio of €1 billion in just over two years. One of the largest purchases it has made this year was the batch of 1,100 homes that belonged to the manager Aquila Capital, headquartered in Hamburg, for €240 million.

With the aim of diversifying its portfolio and entering this growing segment, the international fund manager CBRE GI joined forces with Azora, the Spanish manager founded by Concha Osácar and Fernando Gumuzio, with experience in this sector, and the New York investment firm Madison to invest €750 million over the next two or three years. That three-way alliance started with a portfolio of 65 buildings and a total of 6,458 homes and has the aim of reaching, at least, 10,000 units.

Another large investor that is betting heavily on the Spanish residential sector is DWS, the asset management subsidiary of the German bank Deutsche Bank, which has prepared a budget of €500 million to acquire between 1,000 and 2,000 homes in Spain. In that case, it is backing new build developments and it will do so through three formulae: delegated development, the acquisition of construction projects from other property developers and direct development. The objective is to maintain the assets in its portfolio and rent them out. In that case, the vehicle will not be a Socimi because German regulation of the funds from which the capital proceeds do not allow that. 60% of the investment will be made with own funds and the rest, bank financing. The plan is to invest primarily in Madrid and Barcelona, but they will also study plots in cities such as Bilbao and Sevilla, provided the rental market is very liquid.

Meanwhile, Catella Asset Management Iberia (CAMI), the Spanish subsidiary of the Swedish fund manager is intending to reach 2,000 units by 2020. The manager, which will add 1,000 homes to its portfolio at the beginning of 2019, entered the residential rental market two and a half years ago and has invested around €160 million in the business to date. It plans to double that figure to reach 2,000 homes within two years.

Another real estate company that has teamed up with foreign funds to grow in this segment has been Elix. The firm, which is dedicated to the purchase of buildings, their renovation and the sale of homes by unit, has signed an alliance with KKR and Altamar to invest in buildings, renovate them and dedicate them to the rental market. Its aim is to invest €200 million in Madrid and Barcelona through the Socimi Elix Vintage.

Finally, Redevco has created a new fund to invest €500 million in residential projects in several European markets, including Spain (…). Redevco is planning to build a pan-European residential portfolio comprising approximately 2,500 units.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo & Marisa Anglés)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Elix Buys a Building in Barcelona for €4.1M

26 October 2018 – Eje Prime

Elix VRS is continuing to grow its portfolio as a listed company. The Socimi, led and founded by Jaime Lacasa and Jorge Benjumeda, has acquired a building in Barcelona for €4.1 million, according to a statement filed by the company with the Alternative Investment Market (MAB).

The purchase of the property, located on Calle Consell de Cent of the Catalan capital, has been financed in part by the company’s own funds (45%) and in part by a loan (55%). The loan, granted by CaixaBank, has a five-year term and a quarterly repayment schedule.

This operation follows the acquisition of four buildings in the centre of Barcelona that the company carried out in August for €34 million. The new assets of Elix VRS, controlled primarily by the property developer Elix and the funds KKR and Altamar, are located in iconic areas of the Catalan capital.

During 2018 and after just one year of life, the Socimi already has 25 projects underway in Madrid and Barcelona. With this volume of operations, the real estate company is going to put more than 300 homes on the market. Six of these projects are new build and the other 19 are renovations.

Elix’s plans involve buying around forty buildings by 2021 to subject them to comprehensive renovations and place the homes on the rental market once they have been renovated. These rents will fee the Socimi, which plans to rotate the portfolio of assets that it builds every three years.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

KKR, Altamar & Single Homes Launch New JV to Invest €450M in Málaga

26 October 2018 – Eje Prime

New joint venture to boost the luxury residential sector in Málaga. The funds KKR and Altamar have joined forces with the real estate company Single Homes to invest €450 million in the construction of several developments in the prime urbanisation of Finca Cortesín, located close to the Málagan town of Casares.

The plot where the residential complex is going to be built spans an area of 215 hectares and is located in the centre of the Costa del Sol, between Marbella and Sotogrande. The plan is for the joint venture to build a complex of luxury apartments and villas on this plot worth more than €200 million, according to reports from Expansión.

Single Homes is going to retain a majority stake in the company, whose long-term purpose involves launching other projects with a surface area of almost fifty hectares. The alliance with the funds will allow the real estate firm to finance and consolidate the Finca Cortesín residential complex, which already has a hotel, a golf course and two residential complexes.

The Spanish group, which has more than fifty years of experience, started to operate under the current name in 1987, following the merger of various companies. Nowadays, the company owns a portfolio of assets worth more than €450 million and land for the construction of more than 2,500 homes.

Meanwhile, with this project, KKR and Altamar are once again joining forces in Spain. In 2017, the funds teamed up with the property developer Elix to launch a Socimi specialising in the residential segment.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Socimi Elix VRS to Acquire 4 Assets in Barcelona for €14M

23 October 2018 – Idealista

The Socimis are continuing to grow their portfolios with the acquisition of new assets. Following the purchase of four residential buildings in Barcelona for €34 million, Elix VRS, the Socimi owned by the property developer Elix and the funds KKR and Altamar, is finalising the purchase of new assets amounting to €14 million, as explained by the group in a statement filed with the Alternative Investment Market (MAB).

The company has carried out an update of its forecasts as a result of the upcoming purchase of four assets in Barcelona involving an investment of €14 million. In this way, the company is planning to grow revenues to €578,000 in 2018 and to €1,809,000 in 2019, which represents an almost tripling of the figures following the update. “These forecasts have been prepared on the basis of prudent criteria, taking into account only the assets in the portfolio and the assets committed contractually”, explain sources at the group.

The four residential buildings that Elix’s Socimi purchased are located in the Catalan capital, in the Born neighbourhood, on Calle Comerç and Calle Ribera, as well as on Avenida Gran Vía de les Corts Catalanes and Calle Notariat. The acquisition was financed in part (35%) using the company’s own funds and in part (65%) using a mortgage loan secured by the four assets granted by Caixabank.

In just one year, the Socimi owned by KKR, Elix and Altamar has launched 25 projects (six new builds and 19 renovations) in Madrid and Barcelona. In this way, the group is planning to launch more than 300 homes onto the market.

The plans for Elix VRS involve debuting the entity on the stock market in 2019 and purchasing around forty buildings over three years, which it will subject to a comprehensive renovation before placing the newly renovated homes on the rental market.

Original story: Idealista (by Custodio Pareja)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Just Four Socimis Own Almost 20,000 Rental Homes in Spain

22 July 2018 – El Diario

The debates over rental housing, rising prices and the risk of a new real estate bubble are all continuing to rage. Whilst Pedro Sánchez’s government has started to outline its new policy to avoid a hike in prices, investors are not letting up in their frenzy to take positions in the sector. Proof of that is the continuous trickle of new listed Socimis specialising in the residential rental sector.

One of the latest entities to hit the headlines in this regard is Testa Residencial, whose General Shareholders’ Meeting approved its debut on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB) this week. That secondary market, specialising in Socimis and companies with smaller market capitalisations, will have 19 companies that either specialise in housing or own a significant portfolio of rental homes. Together they own a volume of assets that now comprise almost 24,000 homes, with a combined value of just over €4.1 billion.

Specifically, Testa is going to make its debut on the MAB as the largest rental home real estate company on the secondary market. Following its most recent operations, the Socimi now has 10,573 homes. The entity is owned by BBVA, Santander and Merlin, amongst other shareholders. It is followed, in terms of the number of assets owned, by Albirana, Fidere and Torbel, the three residential Socimis owned by the vulture fund Blackstone, which together own more than 9,300 homes.

Those four companies alone own almost 20,000 rental homes, according to data registered by the companies themselves in their issue brochures or annual accounts. That figure coincides with the plan outlined by the Minister for Development, José Luis Ábalos, which includes the creation by the Government of a stock of public housing for rent over the next four to six years.

Another of the most important Socimis in this field is Témpore, a subsidiary of the bad bank, Sareb, in which the company that owns the toxic assets of the rescued savings banks has placed some of its best homes and which made its stock market debut in March. It owns almost 1,400 homes and announced recently that it will be increasing its portfolio with new assets from Sareb.

Madrid is the province that is home to the most homes owned by the almost twenty Socimis that are listed on the MAB, accounting for 47% of the total (…). It is followed by the province of Barcelona, with 22%, and to a lesser extent, Valencia, with just over 4%. Together, those three provinces account for almost three-quarters of the assets owned by those entities.

Rising yields

The real estate consultancy firm JLL justifies this interest from the Socimis in rental housing by the significant returns that they generate. According to that firm, over the last year, rental homes generated a yield of 11.4%, compared with 10-year public bonds, for example, which generated a return of 1.6%. “Our forecasts indicate that yields will grow by 6.1% over the next three years”, they add, although they highlight that there are differences by region.

JLL specifies that the market is “highly fragmented” despite the “profound transformation” that is happening in the rental housing sector due to the development of Socimis and the arrival of institutional investors. The consultancy firm points out that these types of real estate investors are faced with the limitation of a shortage of entire buildings available for rent, a model that they prefer because it allows for a more efficient management. For that reason, they say that investors such as Testa and Azora are looking to grow their portfolios by building new rental homes in collaboration with property developers and construction companies.

Another noteworthy point about this growth in the number of Socimis dedicated to rental housing is the ownership of the companies. Almost half of the real estate companies that are listed on the MAB, eight to be precise, are controlled by companies that have their headquarters in Luxembourg. Such is the case of Albirana, Elaia, Elix Vintage, Fidere, Hadley, and Torbel, a company that is also indirectly controlled from the Cayman Islands. Another of the companies is located in The Netherlands (Barcino) and two others, Galil and VBare, are linked to Israeli investors (…).

Original story: El Diario (by Diego Larrouy)

Translation: Carmel Drake

KKR, Altamar & Elix Inject €12M into their Socimi

16 March 2018 – Eje Prime

It’s non-stop for the Socimi owned by Altamar, the property developer Elix and KKR. After taking its first steps last year with the acquisition of its first assets, Elix Vintage Residencial has received a capital injection of €12 million to move ahead with the purchase of assets located in Barcelona and Madrid, as explained by company sources speaking to EjePrime. This new capital injection comes in the same year that the Socimi is planning to make its debut on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB).

According to the Official Gazette of the Mercantile Registry, the company has carried out a €12 million capital increase in its company Elix Vintage Residencial Socimi. As such, the subscribed capital of the company now amounts to €15 million. The first purchases that the company carried out were four residential assets, in Barcelona and Madrid, last year.

Currently, the company led and founded by the businessman Jaime Lacasa and Jorge Benjumeda, have 25 projects underway, which will result in the placing on the market of more than 300 homes. Of those projects, six are new builds and 19 are renovations.

Under the framework that Socimis are obliged to adhere to, the company plans to make its debut on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB) before the end of this year, whilst its mission in 2019 is going to be to start to trade on the main stock market. On the MAB, the company will start trading under the name Elix Vintage Residencial Socimi.

KKR and Altamar Capital Partners joined forces last July to invest in the Spanish market in the renovation and rental of homes. The two funds signed an agreement with one of the property developers that has most experience in this sector, Elix, to launch a Socimi that will invest more than €200 million in the purchase of properties in Barcelona and Madrid. The objective of both funds with the investment vehicle is to list it on the stock market once it has made the bulk of its investments.

This company, headquartered in Barcelona, was created with share capital of €100 million, most of which was contributed by KKR and a group of international and domestic investors including Altamar and Deutsche Finance Group. The rest of the shares are owned by Lacasa and Benjumeda

The Socimi’s plans involve purchasing around forty buildings over three years to subject them to a comprehensive renovation and put the homes on the rental market once renovated. That rental income will feed the Socimi, which plans to rotate the portfolio of assets that it builds every three years.

Elix will be the company responsible for transforming the properties, and so will act as the industrial partner. With this vehicle, the company is going to manage to scale its business model, which until now had been very concentrated in El Eixample, Barcelona. The company, founded in 2003, launched its activity in Madrid last year (…).

Original story: Eje Prime (by C. Pareja)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Elix Vintage Residencial Buys 4 Buildings for €3M

5 December 2017 – Eje Prime

The Socimi owned by Altamar, the property developer Elix and KKR has purchased its first assets. The company Elix Vintage Residencial has injected €3 million for the purchase of four buildings, located in Barcelona and Madrid, according to explanations given by sources at the company to Eje Prime.

According to the Official Gazette of the Mercantile Registry, the firm has carried out a capital increase amounting to €3 million in the company Elix Vintage Residencial Socimi. In this way, the company’s subscribed capital has increased to €3.06 million. According to the company, the first purchases that have been carried out involve four residential assets, in Barcelona and Madrid, although sources at Elix declined to give more details about the properties.

KKR and Altamar Capital Partners joined forces in July to invest in the Spanish market for the renovation and leasing of homes. The two funds signed an agreement with one of the property developers with the greatest amount of experience in the sector, Elix, to launch a Socimi that will invest more than €200 million in the purchase of properties in Barcelona and Madrid. The objective of both funds is to debut the investment vehicle on the stock market once it has carried out the bulk of its investments.

This company, which is headquartered in Barcelona, was created with share capital of €100 million. That capital was mostly contributed by KKR and a group of international and domestic investors, including Altamar and Deutsche Finance Group. The rest of the shares are owned by Jaime Lacasa and Jorge Benjumeda, founders of Elix.

The idea is that this capital contribution could be doubled with indebtedness. The plan involves purchasing around four buildings over three years and subjecting them to complete renovations before putting them on the market as rental homes once they have been refurbished. That rental income will feed the Socimi, which plans to rotate its asset portfolio every three years.

Elix will be the company responsible for converting the properties, and so it is acting as an industrial partner. With this vehicle, the company will be able to scale up its business model, which until now had been very concentrated in the El Eixample district of Barcelona. The company, founded in 2003, expanded its activity to Madrid last year (…).

New recruit

In parallel to its Socimi, Elix is pushing ahead with its business, to which end it has hired a new director to strengthen its real estate area. The company has recruited Rafael Vázquez to lead the management of its property portfolio.

The company’s newest member will lead an area that handles around 1,000 properties and which is expected to include another forty new buildings (to be renovated) thanks to the more than €200 million of funding that the Socimi Elix Vintage Residencial has available to spend on assets in the Spanish and Catalan capitals.

Vázquez, who has more than fifteen years of experience in the sector, joined the firm from Encore Captial Group, a company for which he carried out asset recovery services in Spain. The executive holds a degree in Architecture and an MBA from the IE business school.

Original story: Eje Prime (by C. Pareja)

Translation: Carmel Drake

KKR & Altamar Join Forces With Elix To Buy Residential Properties

21 July 2017 – Expansión

KKR and Altamar Capital Partners have formed an alliance to invest in the Spanish market where it wants to acquire, renovate and rent out residential buildings. The two funds have joined one of the property developers with the longest history in this sector, Elix, to launch a Socimi that will invest more than €200 million in the purchase of properties in Barcelona and Madrid.

According to sources in the know, yesterday (Thursday) the Socimi Elix Vintage Residencial was constituted, an investment vehicle that is expected to debut on the stock market once it has undertaken the bulk of its investments. This company, which is headquartered in Barcelona, has been created with a share capital of €100 million, most of which has been contributed by KKR and a group of international and domestic investors, including Altamar and Deutsche Finance Group. The other shares are held by Jaime Lacasa (pictured above, right) and Jorge Benjumeda (pictured above, left), founders of Elix.

This capital contribution could be more than doubled when debt is added to the mix. The idea is to buy around 40 buildings in three years, subject them to a comprehensive refurbishment and put them on the rental housing market once the renovation work is complete. The corresponding rental income will feed the Socimi, which plans to rotate its portfolio of assets every three years.

Although Elix Vintage Residencial may debut on the MAB initially, its aspiration is to debut on the main stock market.

Elix will be the company responsible for converting the properties, which is why it has been named as the industrial partner. With this vehicle, the company will be able to successfully scale its business model, which until now had been very concentrated within the El Eixample district of Barcelona. The company, founded in 2003, has managed to convert its brand into a reference in the renovation market in the Catalan capital and last year, it launched activity in Madrid.

“For Elix, this operation represents an important milestone in our development due to the cooperation with some renowned internationally prestigious investors”, explained Lacasa and Benjumeda yesterday. According to the businessmen, the Socimi “will support the growth and institutionalisation process” of the company.

Guillaume Cassou, Head of the Real Estate area at KKR in Europe, has been appointed President of the Socimi. “We are delighted with this new investment in Spain, in a sector that we consider has significant potential and in conjunction with partners with the standing of Altamar and Elix”, said Cassou.

Advice

Altamar Capital Partners, the Spanish independent financial services group chaired by Claudio Aguirre, will be represented by Fernando Olaso, Head of Altamar Real Estate.

The constitution of Elix Vintage Residencial has been advised by Freshfields, RCD, BDO Abogados and CBRE. The investment vehicle will be managed by Elix SCM Partners, a company chaired by Mercedes Grau – formerly a director at Banca March and partner at MdF Family Partners – and will be advised by Lacasa, Benjumeda and the lawyer Adolf Rousaud.

Original story: Expansión (by Sergi Saborit)

Translation: Carmel Drake

RE Sector: Are The Mistakes Of The Past Being Repeated?

3 June 2015 – Expansión

Overseas investors are exerting significant buy-side pressure, which is driving up property prices; the experts hope that rental prices will increase accordingly, otherwise another bubble will begin to grow, they fear.

The mass entry of foreign capital into Spain’s real estate market after six years of absolute drought has led to significant changes in the sector, but some (experts) fear that the mistakes of the past may be repeated. At a meeting of experts from the real estate sector, organised by Expansión and KPMG, the speakers agreed that the (economic) cycle has now changed, but they warned against the speed of the price increases in certain segments and the indebtedness of some transactions.

CBRE’s CEO in Spain said that “two years ago, we could not have dreamed of such a rapid recovery”. He added: “From the outside, the investment sector validates that Spain will do its homework and that rental prices will recover, however these rents must increase, since they are the lifeblood of the sector; if not, we will be inflating a new bubble”.

The director of the Masters in RE Consultancy at the University of Barcelona, Gonzalo Bernardos, is more pessimistic. “We are witnessing a new cycle of growth that is going to result in further price rises in Spain; whether that is harmful or not will depend on the financial institution, but I personally have serious doubts as to whether the banks have learned anything”, he said.

(…)

By contrast, the partner responsible for Real Estate at KPMG in Spain, Javier López Torres said that “banks are reviewing transactions with tremendous care, they are not managing land any more”. And he confirmed that “in a residential building, for example, the loan to value ratio must not exceed 50%”.

The CEO of Hi Partners, Alejandro Hernández-Puértolas also thinks that “the analysis that banks are currently performing with respect to hotel assets goes beyond their mere value, it is completely different from a few years ago”. He said that “increasingly, there are more sophisticated investors in this segment: it will be an important year for investment by private equity firms, Socimis and private individuals”.

Rebound effect

All of the speakers agreed that there has been a rebound effect in Spain after the investment drought. However, the co-founder of Elix, Jaime Lacasa, is concerned about the debt that is accompanying the investment operations. He thinks that “the banks’ models are too short-termist” and…he considers that many people are practically being forced to invest their money.

The CEO of Colonial, Pere Viñolas, also thinks that “the mistakes of the past will be repeated in the future: significant errors may already be happening in some deals in Spain”, he said. In Madrid, for example, “players are investing in office buildings on the outskirts, at very dubious prices. In general, in the prime areas, property values are now just 30% below the peaks reached in 2007 and the recovery in terms of rental income has not even started yet”.

(…)

Financing

Martínez-Laguna wanted to point out that the property (ownership) business should be distinguished from the property development business…Lacaso affirmed that in the development sector “the riskiest financing is to developers; if we solve that, then financing to end buyers is not risky”. He also called for “regulation of the development sector..”.

Bernardos thinks that “Spain will be fashionable for a few more years” and also that “the Catalan independence process will crush the office market in Barcelona”.

Original story: Expansión (by Marisa Anglés)

Translation by: Carmel Drake