Tag: executives

Corestate Launches its Business Apartment Venture in Spain

28 March 2019 – Eje Prime

The Luxembourg-based fund manager Corestate has launched a business apartment venture, Joyn, aimed exclusively at executives travelling to other cities for a relatively long period of time.

The company plans to open three business apartment blocks in 2019, two in Madrid and one in Barcelona, with approximately 200 beds each. It is already searching for assets in key locations of each city, such as La Diagonal and 22@ in Barcelona and Las Tablas in Madrid.

The apartments will each have a small kitchen, study and living room. There will also be common areas in each building to encourage networking. The model has already proved successful in Munich, where Corestate has been operating two such properties since 2018.

In addition, the company’s agreement with Medici Living is starting to take shape – the intention is to close this year with 450 co-living beds in Spain.

Original story: Eje Prime (by Marta Casado Pla)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

KPMG Surveys 148 Directors In The RE Sector

19 May 2017 – Expansión

Directors and entrepreneurs in the real estate sector have faith in the progress of their industry. Moreover, more than half of them believe that the recovery is not very consolidated yet or is still pending consolidation, according to the conclusions of the Outlook for Spain 2017 report, prepared by KPMG in collaboration with the Spanish Confederation of Business Organisations (CEOE), on the basis of the opinions of 148 directors in the sector.

According to the report, 55% of those surveyed think that the recovery is not very consolidated yet or is still pending consolidation and 63% believe that prices will continue their upward trend.

In terms of the perception of the current situation in the sector, 28% consider it to be good or excellent, compared with 35% who consider it to be ok. The prospects for the next 12 months are more optimistic, given that 45% expect the situation in the sector to improve.

Similarly, 91% of directors confirm that during the course of this year, they are going to continue to maintain their levels of investment and may even increase them, and 27% expect to see an increase in their turnover during 2017.

Risks

Regarding the future challenges facing the sector, more than half of the directors surveyed believe that a weakness in demand is the main threat to their businesses.

The respondents also agree that investment in the sector has already reached a high level of maturity. In this way, 40% of those surveyed believe that there is a risk of a new real estate bubble forming over the next few years and one in five regarded that risk as “high”.

Over the next few months, 32% of the directors think that they will focus on international expansion and 25% consider the digital transformation as a strategic priority.

For Javier López Torres, Partner for Real Estate at KPMG in Spain, the current situation in the sector can be explained by differentiating between three scenarios or speeds: those where asset types and location are combined with liquid demand, in such a way that in “general terms”, the reactivation is already being consolidated; those where players are starting to invest and build certain asset types in specific locations; and finally, those where the absorption of specific products will be very slow, given that it does not respond to a real current demand.

Original story: Expansión (by R.A.)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Popular Abandons Sunrise To Pursue Other RE Solutions

29 March 2017 – Cinco Días

Speculation about the future of Banco Popular has not dissipated following Emilio Saracho’s arrival as the entity’s new President on 20 February, although it is true that it has tempered slightly. The bank’s low solvency ratios, after it completed a major cleanup effort in 2016, are fueling those rumours and it seems that until the entity shows the market that it is capable of resurrecting itself like Ave Fénix, through some kind of major sales operation, then the market will not stop seeing it as an easy target.

Popular’s level of regulatory capital stood at 8.17% in December, below the 10.5% required by the ECB in January 2019 and also below the average for the sector. Most of its capital consumption is due to its high-risk level, itself a consequence of its large property portfolio, the main problem in all of this. However, a substantial number of the solutions designed by the former President, Ángel Ron, have now disappeared or have been modified. (…)

One project that has been buried almost completely, although it has barely been acknowledged that it is not going to be carried out, is Sunrise. That was Ron’s star project, to eliminate a large part of the entity’s real estate portfolio.

The idea was to transfer around €6,000 million in real estate assets to this vehicle, which was going to be deconsolidated from Banco Popular’s balance sheet, after securing a complex financing structure, and its subsequent debut on the stock market.

It seems that Saracho has not approved of that project since he arrived at the bank and has decided to shut it away in a drawer, never opened. Now questions are being asked about what will happen to Remigio Iglesias and Roberto Rey, two executives hired by Popular last year to serve as the President and CEO of Sunrise, respectively.

Another option still open to Popular is to turn to the European bad bank, which the ECB is expected to create, according to market sources. In fact, Popular’s share price was the most bullish on Tuesday, with an increase of 3.24%, after the European Banking Authority said that it was in favour of creating a European bad bank to solve the problematic loan phenomenon, a project that is also supported by the ECB.

Original story: Cinco Días (by Ángeles Gonzalo Alconada)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Aena Plans To Sell Off Land & Move Its HQ To Barajas

21 June 2016 – El Confidencial

(…). Aena has launched an ambitious plan to generate the maximum possible returns from its vast land holdings, above all, those located around the two jewels in the group’s crown: the Madrid-Barajas Adolfo Suárez and Barcelona-El Prat aerodromes.

The airport manager, whose main objectives since it debuted on the stock exchange has been to optimise its real estate assets, has decided to split the land auction that it has launched into three batches to obtain the maximum benefit from its wealth: the first is limited to Madrid-Barajas Adolfo Suárez; the second to Barcelona-El Prat airport; and the third comprises all of the strategic and real estate consultancy work.

According to El Confidencial, the only way of participating in the bid is by invitation and to this end, the company led by José Manuel Vargas is now making contact with the best international firms in the sector.

In order to benefit from the extensive plan, the company has also decided to consider transferring its headquarters to the capital’s airport, where Aena has ambitious plans, not only to construct offices and hotels, but also to complete its service offering, with meeting rooms for executives, as well as new hangars and warehouses. (…)

Behind Aena’s plans is the logic that the airport manager is the tenant of the buildings that it currently occupies in the capital and which it would vacate if this operation ends up going ahead: the building on Calle Arturo Soria 109, which houses Aena Desarrollo Internacional, and the property on Peonías 12, in the elitist area of La Piovera.

New times, new businesses

(…). Aena owns 2,000 hectares of land around its aerodromes, land that is concentrated in Madrid (which accounts for 40% of the total or 800 hectares) and Barcelona (18% or 360 hectares). The vast size of this space, together with the hub nature of these two infrastructures, are the two pivots around which the public company is designing its master plan.

On the one hand, it wants to take advantage of the boom in e-commerce and of the growth of companies such as Amazon, to construct and lease warehouses that will become the large storerooms of these types of companies in our country. (…).

On the other hand, Aena also wants to build new hangars for airlines on land closer to the airport terminals, something that it has already done under the terms of the agreement signed with Globalia for its subsidiary Air Europa at Terminal 1.

Finally, the airport manager wants to build hotels, offices and meeting centres in the vicinity of Barajas and El Prat, an initiative aimed at turning the two jewels in its crown into genuine airport cities and meeting points, which will allow executives from all over the world use these two infrastructures as their operational bases. (…)

Original story: El Confidencial (by Ruth Ugalde)

Translation: Carmel Drake