Amro Plans to Invest €500M to Reach 5,000 Beds in Spain & Portugal in 3 Years

18 June 2019 – Eje Prime

Amro Real Estate Partners is planning to invest €500 million to grow its portfolio of student beds in Spain and Portugal to 5,000 over the next 3 years.

The British company, which specialises in investing in and managing student halls is going to undertake the investment in partnership with a family office whose name has not been disclosed. It plans to accumulate between 10 and 15 halls of residence by 2022.

In this vein, the company has just purchased its third asset in Spain, a plot of land with a buildable surface area of 6,000 m2, which will house 229 beds, in the Teatinos neighbourhood of Málaga. Work will start on the construction of that hall of residence in Q1 2020 with completion scheduled in time for the academic year commencing September 2021.

Amro’s two existing assets in Spain are under development and include a hall of residence in Granada, which will contain 354 beds with a buildable surface area of 11,300 m2, and a student hall in Sevilla, which is going to have 341 beds and a buildable surface area of 9,172 m2.

Original story: Eje Prime (by Marta Casado Pla)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Vivenio Invests €90M in the Purchase of 2 Buildings in Madrid

10 June 2019 – Eje Prime

Vivenio has purchased two buildings in Madrid from a Madrilenian family office for more than €90 million.

The Socimi owned by the Dutch fund APG and Renta Corporación has acquired one building located on Avenida San Luis, comprising 140 homes and 18 premises and another on Calle Hermosilla, with 80 homes and two premises.

Together, the two properties span a surface area of more than 21,500 m2.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation/Summary: Eje Prime

Alantra Leases 5,000 m2 of Office Space in Rivas Futura (Madrid)

27 February 2019 – Eje Prime

Alantra Reim has leased 5,000 m2 of offices in 521HUB, the business park that the company manages in Rivas Futura (Madrid). The complex comprises two twin, independent buildings located on Calle Marie Curie in the Madrilenian municipality, which span a total surface area of 43,500 m2.

With this operation, Alantra Reim, the Alantra Group’s real estate investment and asset management platform, is starting to occupy Building I in this business park, which the company purchased in July 2018 from the Spanish family office Autocampo. The other twin building is leased almost in its entirety, according to a statement issued by the company. This operation has been advised by the consultancy firm CBRE.

The 521HUB business park is located between the towns of Rivas Futura and Rivas Vaciamadrid, just twenty kilometres from Madrid, and has office spaces available from 1,500 m2 up to 17,000 m2.

In addition to its office assets, Alantra Reim, led by Luis Iglesias, also operates a line of business in the hotel segment. Last year, in Spain, it acquired the Islantilla resort in Huelva and Hotel Denia La Sella in Alicante.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Arcano Sells 2 Buildings in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat to a Family Office for €40M

17 January 2019 – Eje Prime

Arcano is divesting two of its assets. The real estate fund Asoref has sold two buildings in Plaza de Europa, in the Barcelona municipality of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat to a family office for €40 million, according to Expansión.

In the case of the first asset, located at numbers 22 and 24 Plaza de Europa, it is an office building spanning 7,3000 m2, which was acquired by Arcano two years ago and which has been completely renovated and repositioned. The offices, distributed over four above-ground floors, have an occupancy rate of 100%. The tenants of the property include companies such as Aide, Zurich and Vanity Fair.

In the case of the second building, located at number 10 Plaza de Europa, it is a project that is still under construction. The building work is expected to be finished this year at which point the building will have a gross leasable area (GLA) of 5,000 m2.

The two buildings were acquired with Arcano’s first real estate investment fund, which was launched in the summer of 2015 and which had €100 million of capital. Currently, the company is in the process of raising capital for its second fund, Arcano Value Added II. The investment vehicle will amount to between €150 million and €200 million, and €70 million has already been committed.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Mazabi Sells Fever’s New HQ in Central Madrid for €6M

14 January 2019 – Expansión

The Spanish family office Mazabi has decided to sell an office building that it owns along the Prado-Recoletos thoroughfare in Madrid, next to the Congress of Representatives.

The property, which has a surface area of 1,400 m2, spread over the basement and six upper floors, is located on Calle Santa Catalina, 4. Mazabi acquired the property three years ago as a value-added investment, and during this period, it has renovated it and found a new tenant to now sell it for a profit.

Specifically, the property is soon going to be home to the headquarters of the US social platform Fever in Spain. The company, which has headquarters in New York, London and Madrid, has decided to relocate to these new offices in light of its major growth plans. Fever’s employees are expected to move in once the renovation and design work for the new offices has been completed, in a period of approximately nine months.

The operation, which has been brokered by the real estate consultancy Catella, has been closed for €6 million. The buyer is a Spanish family office (…).

Original story: Expansión

Translation: Carmel Drake

Spaces Leases 3,100 m2 of Office Space from MGS in Recoletos

13 December 2018 – Eje Prime

Spaces is going to be looking closely at the goddess Cibeles from now on. The co-working firm owned by Regus has found a space on Paseo de Recoletos in Madrid, one of the most prime areas of the Spanish capital, where it is going to lease the entire building that Mutua General de Seguros (MGS) owns there, according to reports from sources close to the operation speaking to Eje Prime.

The building is located at number 5 on the central Madrilenian street, very close to Plaza Cibeles. There, Spaces is going to occupy the property’s entire surface area of 3,053 m2, spread over five storeys and an attic. It will be the company’s sixth centre in the Spanish capital.

Spaces’ new office in Madrid has been owned by MGS since 2017 when that firm purchased the building from a local family office for €30 million. A year before the sale, the former owners completely renovated the property, which now has a large entrance hall with high ceilings, two elevators, a raised floor and Led lighting.

On the other hand, the co-working owned by Regus is already studying the rental of its seventh asset in Madrid. It is another prime space in the city, where the company is looking to occupy between 4,000 m2 and 5,000 m2.

With these new operations, Spaces could add more than 15,000 m2 of space to its Madrilenian portfolio during the fourth quarter of 2018. The company recently signed two other spaces in Méndez Álvaro and María de Molina, spanning 5,500 m2 and 3,500 m2, respectively.

Expansion in Spain

In addition to consolidating its presence in Madrid, the company led in Spain by Philippe Jiménez is working on its domestic expansion. The company is finalising openings in Bilbao, Sevilla and Gijón, as revealed by Eje Prime. Moreover, the manager is already looking for spaces in some of the country’s other major cities, such as Valencia (…).

Original story: Eje Prime (by Jabier Izquierdo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Goldcar’s Founders Acquire Bankia’s HQ in Alicante

30 November 2018 – Eje Prime

The founders of Goldcar have acquired the headquarters of Bankia in Alicante. The family office owned by the brothers Juan and Pedro Alcaraz, Aligrupo, has been awarded the property that the bank used to own in La Explenada area, and for which numerous offers have been made since it went on the market in October.

The offer received from Aligrupo was the highest of all those received for the building, which will no longer be in the hands of Bankia due to the property divestment process that the entity is carrying out following its merger with Banco Mare Nostrum (BMN), according to Alicante Plaza.

During the month that the building has been up for sale, Bankia has received around thirty visits, which is a good sign of the interest that this operation has sparked in the real estate sector in Alicante.

With this new purchase, the Alcaraz brothers are strengthening their property portfolio, which comprises luxury residential buildings for rent in Madrid. Over the last two years, Aligrupo has acquired two properties in the prime areas of Salamanca and Chamberí for that purpose.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Mazabi Launches a New Retail Park Project with €30M of Own Funds

16 October 2018 – Eje Prime

Mazabi is committed to retail parks. The Spanish property manager has launched Atalaya Superficies Comerciales onto the market, a project that has been created to develop retail parks and premises, which is going to be led by Sebastián Ojeda, according to a statement issued by the group.

Ojeda, who comes from Bankinter, is joining Mazabi with the purpose of leading the retail park sector in Spain. The new management vehicle is being created with €30 million of own funds contributed by various domestic and Latin American family offices. Atalaya has set itself the objective of achieving sales of more than €180 million over the next six years.

In addition to Ojeda, who has more than twenty years of experience in the banking sector, Mazabi is going to recruit other professionals and it will also engage specialist external advisors. The commitment of the real estate company to retail parks responds, according to the company, to the fact that it is “a sector with a high demand for professionalization and with high growth expectations over the medium term”.

“With the platform and experience offered by our multi-family office, the incorporation of Sebastián (Ojeda) into the project allows us to professionalise this area of the business, which has always been strategic for our group”, says Juan Antonio Gutiérrez, the CEO of the company.

Currently, Mazabi manages properties worth more than €1.3 billion, has investments in fourteen countries with fifty funds and has a specialist team of 25 professionals located in Madrid, Bilbao, Santander, Málaga and Luxembourg. The manager has the objective of growing its portfolio to reach €2 billion and, to that end, has engaged KPMG Real Estate to look for a long-term partner, to contribute equity of €200 million to acquire a “pipeline” of around €500 million.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

MK Premium to Invest €8M in Asset Purchases in Barcelona

17 October 2018 – Eje Prime

MK Premium is focusing on Barcelona. The company led by the brothers Daniel and Sergio Leiva is going to invest €8 million in the acquisition of assets in the metropolitan area of Barcelona. With this commitment, the company will make its debut in municipalities such as L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Badalona and Santa Coloma de Gramenet.

For Daniel Leiva, one of the co-founders of the company, “the time has come to expand our business opportunities to other municipalities bordering the Catalan capital, where there are real estate products that fit with our business model”.

The Catalan family office expects to announce its first purchase in the metropolitan area of Barcelona in the coming weeks. Moreover, the company is going to continue to renovate its properties to improve their conditions and returns.

These plans coincide with MK Premium’s business strategy over the medium term. The company is planning to expand its capital estate by 50% and to extend its presence to other cities in Spain.

Founded in 2012, MK Premium owns buildings in Madrid and in Portugal – it first expanded to that country at the end of December. The Spanish real estate firm is planning to increase its real estate investment by 15% this year and close 2018 with a profit, following the acquisition of more than eighty assets.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Eric Vökel Boutique Apartments Sells 1,000-m2 Property Next to Sagrada Familia

4 October 2018

The company owns by the Danish architect sold the building to a Catalan family office. The operation was concluded using a long-term sale & lease-back contract.

The market for tourist apartments us continuing to see an elevated level of activity in Barcelona. Eric Vökel Boutique Apartments, a company that specialises in the sector and which was founded by the Danish architect of the same name, just sold a 1,000-square-meter property next to the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, ​​according to sources with knowledge of the transaction.

The new owner of the building is a Catalan family office, which completed its acquisition of the asset with a long-term sale & lease-back contract and with a return just under 4%. The transaction, which was concluded for an undisclosed sum, was advised upon by the consultancy Valliance.

Eric Vökel intended to generate funds to undergird the firm’s planned international expansion while maintaining its presence in the Catalan capital, where it owns two other properties. One of those properties is also located near the Sagrada Familia, while the other is in the middle of Gran Vía.

Founded by the Danish architect Eric Vökel, the company was created in Barcelona after a trip by the Nordic executive to the Catalan capital, where he now lives. Outside of the Catalan capital, the company has boosted its portfolio through the acquisition of tourist apartments in Madrid, Hamburg, Amsterdam and, more recently, Copenhagen.

The residential tourism market is on an upswing in Barcelona. During the last Easter week, apartments of this type saw prices increases of 11.6%, according to a report from the apartment manager Hostmaker. The study estimated that the daily price that visitors paid for staying overnight in a home in the Catalan capital reached 115 euros.

Hostmaker has been one of the most active players in the sector in Barcelona in the last year and a half. The online platform plans to finish 2018 with 600 flats under management in the Catalan capital, quadrupling the size of its portfolio since 2017. The company also began operating in Madrid this year, EjePrime reported. Jaime de la Torre de Ysasi-Ysasmendi, who once worked at both Airbnb and Amazon, is the firm’s new general director as Hostmaker doubles down on its investments in the country.

Original Story: EjePrime – Jabier Izquierdo

Translation: Richard Turner