Alicante Global Group Teams Up With Basque Property Developer Ferrocarril

25 October 2017 – Valencia Plaza

Alicante Global Group, the new real estate venture from the former President of the Santa Ana group, Juan Antonio Iniesta, and the former President of the Alicante employers’ association Coepa, Moisés Jiménez, to place property developments foreclosed by the banks back on the market, is expanding its base.

According to Iniesta himself, in statements to Alicante Plaza, the businessmen from Alicante have joined forces with the Basque property developer Grupo Ferrocarril (which is now based in Rivas Vaciamadrid), which will be in charge of finishing and selling those developments.

As this newspaper published at the time, Alicante Global Group, comprising the Alicante-based companies The Casas Company and Alicia Hoteles, was created with the intention of acquiring developments foreclosed by banks during the toughest years of the real estate crisis, completing them, revaluing them and putting them back on the market. The Group signed its first operation in May with Liberbank: two residential towers in Gran Vía, Alicante, and several villas in the luxury residential development Altea Hills.

The partner that Iniesta and Jiménenez have been looking for in this regard is the Basque property developer Grupo Ferrocarril, which specialises in the construction of private homes and social housing, both in its home region and also in Madrid in recent years. The group, chaired by the businessman Rafael González Cobos, has, in turn, formed a strategic alliance of its own with the Madrilenian giant in the sector Grupo Avintia, owned by the property developer Antonio Martín Jiménez, which has been heavily backing the Community of Valencia: at the start of 2016, it inaugurated its offices in Valencia capital, and it now has eight projects underway there (one of which is actually in Alicante) and more than 600 homes under construction. Together, the two firms have created the Ferrocarril Avintia group to operate in South America (…).

According to explanations provided by Iniesta to questions posed by this newspaper, it is likely that Martín Jiménez’s company (Grupo Avintia) will be responsible for the execution of most of the improvements of the acquired developments, by virtue of its agreement with Ferrocarril (…).

Original story: Valencia Plaza (by David Martínez)

Translation: Carmel Drake

The RE Kings Are Building Thousands Of Homes In Spain

18 September 2017 – El País

The house building sector in Spain is back after a decade adrift during which many of the large firms went to the wall (…).

But the same crisis (that harmed so many) has also given rise to a new, more institutionalised house building sector, which claims to have learnt from the mistakes of its predecessors (…).

In this new industry, there are some familiar faces, such as Realia, Quabit, Amenabar, Pryconsa, Ferrocarril, and ACR, amongst others (…). But the market now is dominated by new firms. They are the new generation of property developers, or rather, they are real estate giants, and their names include Neinor Homes, Vía Célere, Aelca, Aedas Homes and Kronos, poised to ride the new wave in the residential sector. Ahead, they face some major challenges, such as facilitating housing for young people, cutting costs, the industrialisation of the sector, putting clients first to avoid the errors of the past, and improving the image of the sector by being intolerant to all forms of corruption.

At the helm of these giants are overseas investment funds, which have chosen to back the Spanish residential market, with the economic cycle in full swing – new build permits rose by 29% in 2016. These foreign players are investing thousands of millions of euros in the purchase of large portfolios of land, at still low prices, in strategic locations and they are benefitting from low construction costs, at least for the time being. In this way, the funds have engaged managers with extensive experience in the traditional property developers to lead these firms, such as Juan Antonio Gómez-Pintado (Vía Célere) and David Martínez (Aedas Homes), amongst others (…).

The firms themselves talk about reaching a cruising speed of between 3,000 and 4,000 new homes per year (per firm) over the next three years (…). The largest 50 property developers and managers by volume of homes sold (based on completions due from 2018) “plan to build around 45,000 homes over the next three years”, according to Raúl Templado, at Alimarket Construcción. This figure is low if we consider that various trade associations, such as APCE and CEOE, calculate that Spain needs 150,000 new homes per year to ensure a healthy residential market.

That is why international funds are so interested in doing business in a sector that, despite its sharp decline – the number of housing permits represents less than 10% of the level in 2007 – “continues to carry significant weight: 15% of domestic GDP” (…).

Foreign capital

The arrival of foreign funds, such as Värde Partners, Lone Star and Castlelake, has been like a breath of fresh air. “They have provided strategic vision and they made the decision to invest when we were still in a bearish cycle, identifying opportunities and giving credibility to a sector that was and still is attractive for investment, when nobody else was interested. On the other hand, their way of working with a more financial vision has resulted in structural and organisational changes that before were not considered”, says Gómez-Pintado (…).

The result is a sector in full transformation, where movements are happening non-stop, and so it is hard to know who is leading the market. The Institute of Governance and Applied Economics, an independent research centre, calculates that the largest 20 property developers in the country will build 80,000 homes between now and 2020. Their ranking is led by Metrovacesa, Neinor Homes and Aedas Homes, although family groups, local businesses and cooperative managers also feature (…).

Original story: El País (by Sandra López Letón)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Stoneweg Will Invest €750M+ In RE Assets In Spain

26 April 2017 – El Mundo

Stoneweg, the real estate platform created in Switzerland by Jaume Sabater and Joaquín Castellví – specialists in Real Estate following their time at the bank Edmond de Rothschild – has announced the opening of its first two offices in Spain, in Barcelona and Madrid.

In this way, Stoneweg is consolidating its position in the Spanish market, where it has been investing in numerous and diverse real estate developments since 2015. The company has also announced that, over the next few years, it will allocate more than €750 million to investments in Spain, of which €450 million has already been committed to various projects. Specifically, the developments that Stoneweg is already constructing, managing and marketing in Spain – which are due to be delivered between 2017 and 2020 – are located in the urban nuclei of Madrid and Barcelona, the metropolitan rings of both cities and the Mediterranean Coast (Costa Brava, Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol).

In total, the manager is working on more than 1,300 homes across 30 developments, on residential land spanning 200,000 m2 and retail premises, as well as three developments measuring more than 22,000 m2 above ground in several office buildings. The platform has created this sizeable investment portfolio by purchasing properties from the banks, Sareb and private owners.

“We place our trust in Spain due to its power for constant economic growth and its high capacity to attract tourists in search of a second home, as well as for the strengthening of mortgages and the rapid access to them”, explained Joaquín Castellví, Director of Acquisitions at Stoneweg and CEO of Stoneweg Spain. (…).

The manager has signed agreements with some of the main financial entities (Banco Santander, BBVA, La Caixa, Banco Sabadell, Abanca) and strategic partners (Grupo Sorigue, Ferrocarril, Grupo Castellví) with the aim of constituting one of the most robust real estate groups in Europe.

In addition to Spain and Switzerland, the manager led by Sabater and Castellví also has a presence in Italy and the USA, and has an investment capacity of more than €1,400 million in real estate assets across all of its markets (50% of which will be invested in Spain). (…).

Stoneweg’s new offices in Spain, located on Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid, one of the capital’s main thoroughfares, and on Calle Mestre Nicolau, in the heart of Barcelona’s financial district, will employ personnel with an average age of around 32 years old, which means that Stoneweg will be the real estate manager with one of the youngest workforces in the country.

Next month, the platform will participate in Sima (Salón Inmobiliario de Madrid) for the first time, with the aim of promoting, amongst others, the projects that it already has underway in the Spanish capital, especially the developments at the Fresno Norte urbanisation, and on Calles Alfonso X and Mateo Inurria, which are scheduled to be completed by the end of 2017 and/or the beginning of 2018.

Original story: El Mundo

Translation: Carmel Drake