ActivumSG Launches New €500M Fund with Projects in Marbella & Salamanca

22 January 2018 – Eje Prime

The international group ActivumSG is continuing to back its business in the Spanish market. The company, which operates under the brand ASG in Spain, is launching a new €500 million fund to make real estate investments across Europe, according to explanations provided by the company to Eje Prime. Some of the first projects that have already been financed thanks to this fund, the fifth to be promoted by ActivumSG, include three projects in Berlin and three in Spain, located in Marbella, Salamanca and Estepona.

This new fund promoted by ActivumSG is one of the group’s most important in terms of investment, with funds raised mostly from investors that have already participated in the group. Of the €500 million, the fund has already committed more than €200 million in Spain and Germany.

In the Spanish market, ActivumSG has already launched Project España, located in Salamanca. Initially baptised as Project Victoria, the fund has now started construction on this luxury residential development in the centre of the city. “The project involves the demolition of an office building located at number 5 Plaza España to convert it into a high-end residential property, comprising 27 apartments”, say sources at the German company.

The second project that ActivumSG is going to promote with this new fund is Parque Central, in the centre of Estepona. The German fund is already finalising the details to start work on the construction of this residential development, which will span 12,600 m2 and which is already being marketed.

Finally, the fund is working on Project Sierra Blanca, in Marbella. That project, which is in its preliminary phase, will be located in the neighbourhood of Sierra Blanca, in Marbella, and will involve the development of 40 luxury homes, with gardens and parking.

The latter two projects are located in the province of Málaga, one of the main tourist destinations in the south of Spain. ActivumSG has been advised in the acquisition by the group’s Spanish subsidiary, ActivumSG Iberia, which is currently being led by Brian Betel, former Director of Cerberus Iberia Advisor and Citibank.

ActivumSG’s team in Spain is completed by Víctor Pérez Arias, former Director of CBRE; Juan Alonso Bartolomé, a director who has worked for companies such as GE Capital Real Estate and ING Real Estate; Alejandro Adan Manes, who joined the firm from Axa Real Estate; Carlos Molero Sánchez, formerly of PwC and KPMG, and Ignacio Gaytan, who previously held the position of maximum responsibility at Grupo Lar, amongst others.

ActivumSG in Spain

Currently, ActivumSG’s portfolio in Spain comprises a dozen assets, with the exception of two that have been divested in recent months, located in Manuel de Falla and Santa Leonor, both in Madrid (…).

Original story: Eje Prime (by Custodio Pareja)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Morenés & Pepa Launch a New RE Fund with Warren Buffet

19 January 2018 – El Confidencial

Juan Pepa (pictured above left), the man who brought Lone Star to Spain, and Felipe Morenés, the son of Ana Botín and executive of the Texan fund for five years, are working together again. The two directors have just launched Stoneshield Capital, a firm that plans to invest €300 million in the Spanish real estate sector.

According to sources in the know, the two partners already have €200 million of capital, money that proceeds from: their own assets, some of Lone Star’s institutional investors and the famous financier Warren Buffet, who has decided to back them in this venture, although the parties involved did not want to confirm that information.

Unlike in the case of Lone Star, which has an opportunistic profile, Morenés and Pepa now want to focus on more conservative operations, which will limit the level of indebtedness of the new fund to around 50%, meaning that its investor capacity will reach the aforementioned €300 million.

The plans of these two partners are already very well advanced, with several operations on the table under analysis, and with the aim of investing all of that money in just a year, in other words, during the course of 2018, to take advantage of the current cycle.

Although the bulk of Stoneshield’s operations will be carried out in the residential segment, the firm is also interested in acquiring hotels, offices and commercial assets, according to the same sources.

Agreed departure

In November, in an email sent only to his circle of trust, Pepa announced that he was leaving Lone Star and that he would be taking a two-month sabbatical in his home country, Argentina, although in that email he also hinted that after Christmas he would be back in the news in Spain.

Letting that time pass was one of the commitments that Pepa agreed with Lone Star. That firm was already pursuing its exit strategy when, last summer, Santander put Popular’s €30 billion real estate asset portfolio on the market.

The Texan fund, led by Pepa and Morenés, fought to the end to acquire those assets, which would have resulted in Lone Star’s continuation in Spain. But Blackstone’s triumph meant that the fund decided to continue with its policy to close the cycle and so Pepa and Morenés opted to put their own plans into play.

Then, according to the sources, the two parties agreed to wait for Lone Star to complete its divestment from Neinor before moving actively in the Spanish market. The US fund sold its final 12.5% stake in the real estate company last week.

Morenés, meanwhile, has also left Lone Star, according to Vozpópuli, and the two partners are now working to create a team of around 10 people with whom they plan to operate with the same speed and element of surprise that characterised Lone Star when it first arrived in Spain.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Ruth Ugalde)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Meridia Capital Will Debut its Socimi on the MAB in 2018

13 December 2017 – Eje Prime

The Socimi fever is never ending in the real estate sector. In fact, it is growing. The latest company to bet on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB) is Meridia Capital Partners, a Barcelona-based fund led by the veteran businessman Javier Faus, which has announced it is going to debut its Socimi on the stock market, most likely at the beginning of 2018. This incorporation will come after today’s debut on the stock market of the logistics firm P3 Logistics Parks, and after Student Properties, which will soon become the first listed real estate investment company specialising in student halls.

Meridia III, which is what the Socimi is called, owns assets worth more than €100 million, according to Cinco Días. The future listed company owns a diversified portfolio with investments in every sector, from offices and logistics to residential, retail and hotels, but focused, for the time being, in Spain’s two largest cities, Madrid and Barcelona.

Constituted last year, Meridia III was created as the third investment vehicle of the fund, created by Faus in 2001. Its most recent acquisitions include the Barnasud shopping centre, for which it paid €35 million to Unibail-Rodamco.

Moreover, the company has carried out seven capital increases in the last year and a half, amounting to €50 million in total, with the aim of financing its future plans.

In total, Meridia III has an investment capacity of €500 million, of which it has already spent more than 50%.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Quabit Approves €110M Capital Increase To Finance Land Purchases

17 November 2017 – Expansión

On Wednesday, Quabit, the shareholders of the property developer chaired by Félix Abánades, approved several capital increases amounting to more than €110 million, which will be used to finance the purchase of land in Málaga, Costa del Sol, the Balearic Islands and the Corredor del Henares.

The purchase of these plots will be financed primarily by a line of credit amounting to €40 million, agreed with Avenue Capital Group, and by the delivery of new shares in Quabit issued at a price of €2 per share, which will represent a 27% increase in the company’s share capital. To this end, it will increase its share capital through non-monetary contributions amounting to €41.8 million, through the issue of approximately 20.9 million new shares.

Similarly, the shareholders of Quabit approved another monetary capital increase amounting to €70 million to prevent/avoid the dilutive impact of the non-monetary expansions. This increase will be completed through the issue and placement into circulation of 35 million new ordinary shares also with a maximum value of €2, recognising the preferential subscription right for all shareholders.

“The full subscription of all of the capital increases will result in the inflow of approximately €105 million and the strengthening of Quabit’s own funds, which will undoubtedly help to boost growth and to generate value for shareholders over the medium term”, explained the President, Félix Abánades.

The director added that the property developer currently has 18 developments under construction with 1,655 homes up for sale, and is working on the commercial launch of another five developments: “We will finish the year with around 2,100 homes on the market”.

According to Abánades, with all of these land operations and the portfolio of assets already owned by the company, Quabit will own almost 1 million m2 of land for the development of more than 6,700 homes. 70% of those properties will be handed over between 2017 and 2021.

The most recent acquisitions include a portfolio comprising developable land in Corredor del Henares, owned by Grupo Rayet – the main shareholder of Quabit – with a joint investment of €30 million and a buildable surface area of 131,000 m2 for the construction of 970 homes. These plots are located next to land in Alovera (Guadalajara), where Grupo Rayet is planning to build Alovera Beach, a leisure park that will soon be home to the largest artificial urban beach in Europe.

Original story: Expansión

Translation: Carmel Drake

Isolux Agrees To Sell Its Parking Lots To Oak Hill

5 June 2017 – Expansión

On Friday, Isolux took some important steps in its plan to reduce to the maximum the damage caused by its delicate corporate situation. On the one hand, the company’s Board of Directors, chaired by Nemesio Fernández-Cuesta, formulated the accounts for 2016, which saw it record losses of €1,332 million, after the entity recognised provisions and adjustments amounting to €2,853 million.

On the other hand, the company reached a preliminary agreement with the investment fund Oak Hill to transfer it the entire car park business. Sources at the company indicated that the investor held an option to execute a loan of up to €100 million granted in 2015. In theory, Oak Hill’s option was limited to, approximately, half of the business of Isolux Aparcamientos. However, the company and fund have reached an agreement for that option to be extended to include 100% of the subsidiary, in an operation that could see Isolux record revenues of €10 million and deconsolidate debt of €200 million.

The Spanish group first closed an agreement with the fund Oak Hill Capital Partners to jointly develop the business back in 2015. The investment fund undertook to inject €100 million into the company, in the form of a loan allocated entirely to expand the portfolio of assets. In exchange, Isolux granted Oak Hill an option to acquire a stake in the car park subsidiary from 2019 onwards.

Oak Hill’s arrival in 2015 ended a period of uncertainty for this branch of Isolux’s activity, which had been declared available for sale after other attempts to form strategic alliances had failed. At the beginning of 2013, the Spanish group signed a preliminary agreement with the French fund Edifice Capital to invest €150 million between 2013 and 2014. The resources were going to be used to purchase new car parks, with the aim of reaching 50,000 rotating spaces. However, in a surprise move, the French firm did not keep its word and withdrew from the project.

In the meantime, Isolux is pushing ahead with the rest of its divestments, the most high-profile of which is its exit from the transmission lines in Brazil.

On Friday Isolux approved the accounts for 2016, after postponing their formulation on four other occasions, and it did so to coincide with the new process that has been launched to restructure the group and avoid bankruptcy. “The Board of Directors considers that, with the right financial support, Isolux constitutes a viable business project,” said the Board of Directors of the company, which needs new funding and credit lines to ensure its survival.

Feasibility plan

Sources at the company indicate that the auditor, PwC, has not included any qualifications in its report, but that it has included paragraphs to emphasise the link between the operation of the company and the success of Álcarez & Marsal’s feasibility plan. This plan involves segregating the engineering business from the other LoBs and looking for a partner to inject money into the new company, with a portfolio of healthy contracts worth around €1,000 million. The solution requires the support of the plan’s current creditors/shareholders. The group is waiting for a response from Bankia and CaixaBank.

Original story: Expansión (by C. Morán)

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

Quabit Will Build 1,700 Homes With Funding From Avenue

30 December 2016 – Expansión

Yesterday, the listed real estate company Quabit signed an agreement with Avenue Europe International Management, whereby the fund will provide a line of credit amounting to €60 million, which Quabit will use to increase its portfolio of residential projects.

Specifically, the funds obtained through this line of credit will be used to acquire buildable urban land for the development of 1,700 homes next year, in Madrid and surrounding areas.

The funds from Avenue will finance 70% of the land acquisitions, whilst the remaining 30% will be financed by own funds from Quabit. Moreover, the real estate company may increase the amount of the credit line to €85 million.

Business plan

This agreement forms part of the business plan that the real estate company chaired by Félix Abánades set for the period 2015 to 2020, which includes returning to residential development, after years focusing on the sale of finished stock and on its financial restructuring.

To this end, during the first nine months of 2016, the listed real estate company has acquired plots of land in Boadilla del Monte (Madrid) and Guadalajara, and has launched five new developments, containing 304 homes in total. Under this plan, Quabit expects to hand over more than 3,000 homes, including assets from its own portfolio as well as those coming from new investments, with a forecast turnover of more than €950 million.

During the first nine months of 2016, Quabit recorded sales of €25.7 million and losses of €10 million, down by 23% compared to the same period a year earlier. Its EBITDA was negative (-€6.9 million), although it improved by 9.1% compared to the third quarter of 2015.

Original story: Expansión (by R. Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Santander & BNP Put €319M Of Mortgages Up For Sale

19 October 2016 – Expansión

Unión de Créditos Inmobiliarios (UCI), the financial credit company owned jointly by Santander and BNP Paribas, has packaged up 3,850 residential mortgages in Madrid, Andalucía and Cataluña to sell them in the market. To this end, it has structured a securitisation fund amounting to €420 million, of which €319 million will be placed with final investors, a tranche that has been assigned a high quality AA rating by Standard & Poor’s.

It is the third operation that the entity has undertaken in less than a year, as part of the Prado series. Given that UCI is regarded as a special lender, it is not able to approach the European Central Bank in search of financing, and so it is taking advantage of the reactivation of the securitisation market. In total, it has launched three securitisation funds amounting to €1,410 million during this period and a large part of the debt has been sold to investors. On this occasion, UCI is paying competitive prices, of 65 basis points above 3-month Euribor.

According to financial sources, the types of clients involved in this specialist kind of mortgage transfer tend to be those who are unable to access a normal bank, in other words, those who have more risky profiles. But in this securitisation, as S&P has highlighted, the loans are more robust than in standard securitisations because they have lower loan to values (loan amount over appraisal value).

Original story: Expansión (by D. Badía)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Carmena Is Set To Build 1,000 Rental Homes For €60M

19 September 2016 – Voz Populi

The rebirth of the real estate market will soon have a new, unusual, player in its midst: the Town Hall of Madrid. The capital’s Town Hall is getting ready to fire the starting gun for the construction of the first rental homes that it plans to build during its legislature. For the time being, it will put out to tender the construction of almost 1,000 homes, with an initial investment of more than €60 million.

Social housing was one of the key pillars of Ahora Madrid’s election campaign during the municipal elections to govern the largest town hall in Spain, which were held in 2015. For the first few months, the municipality’s new team focused on getting to know the financial circumstances of the ‘Empresa Municipal de la Vivienda y el Suelo’ (EMVS), which starred in spectacular asset sales during Ana Botella’s reign at the Town Hall, all intended to alleviate the city’s economic difficulties.

The Town Hall’s plans now include constructing 4,000 new social housing homes in Madrid before the end of its legislature. Work will begin on a quarter of them within the next few months, once the ten contracts that the mayoress’ team is currently preparing have been awarded (…).

The Town Hall’s property development activity will be launched once the role of the EMVS to contract and put homes on the market has been activated again, following the restrictions imposed on it in recent years. Previously, the company was in a very delicate financial situation due to the collapse in value of the large volumes of land that it had acquired at the end of the real estate bubble and, therefore, at exorbitant prices.

Those circumstances meant that the company had to divest assets, including packages of homes sold to vulture funds, which generated a lot of controversy, which has now been declared void in the courts and by the investigation committee created to try to determine the legal nature of the operation.

In April 2016, the Town Hall injected €17 million into the EMVS, through a capital increase, an amount that was intended to allow it to continue cancelling its debt but which, at the same time, allowed it to relaunch the public company’s construction activity. The developments are located in the district of Vallecas and in the areas of Rosilla and Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles, although the Town Hall’s also plans to construct homes in other areas of the capital too.

This is undoubtedly an unprecedented move and not only in the public sphere, but also in the private. Many real estate companies have cancelled their development plans due to the collapse of the market and the lack of demand, together with the problems generated by the large volume of empty homes in Madrid. The contracts that the Town Hall will put out to tender mean that almost 1,000 new homes will be constructed within two years of them being awarded.

Original story: Voz Populi (by Raúl Pozo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Bain Capital Raises €2,770M & Sets Its Sights On Spain

8 August 2016 – Expansión

Bain Capital wants to become one of the largest buyers of real estate in Spain. On Thursday, the US fund announced that it has completed the acquisition of three asset portfolios from Spanish banks, worth €1,146 million, over the last few months. The sellers are Cajamar, Sabadell and Bankia in three separate deals.

The acquisitions have been made through the fund’s Bain Capital Credit business unit, known until now as Sankaty.

And as if that weren’t enough, in the last few days, the US investor has completed the creation of a new fund in the USA worth $3,100 million (€2,769 million) for distressed investments (assets close to bankruptcy) and assets in special situations, according to Bloomberg.

“We see potential for making new investments in the Iberian Peninsula, especially in the real estate and overdue loan markets”, said Fabio Longo, CEO and Head of the real estate and overdue loan business in Europe at Bain Capital Credit. “We are excited about the opportunity to consolidate our position in the market for non-performing real estate assets in Spain through these investments”, added Alon Avner, CEO and Head of Bain Capital Credit’s European business.

Individual transactions

Of the three portfolios purchased, the largest was bought from Cajamar, containing €511 million of overdue syndicated and bilateral loans, granted primarily to real estate developers in different phases of bankruptcy. This deal, known as Project Baracoa, was the first major competitive sale of loans by a Spanish entity.

In addition, Bain Capital Credit acquired a portfolio of loans with a nominal value of €415 million from Sabadell, comprising overdue loans to property developers, mainly secured by residential and tertiary assets. This operation was known in the market as Project Pirene.

The most recent purchase by the US fund in Spain involved the Project Lane portfolio, comprising €220 million of foreclosed assets sold by Bankia. This was the first operation of its kind carried out by the nationalised group after the failed sale of Project Big Bang at the end of last year, through which it had wanted to sell all of the homes, developments and land on its balance sheet. In the end, Bankia was unable to reach an agreement with the investor who had expressed the most interest, Cerberus.

For all of these operations, Bain Capital has been advised by the asset managers Copernicus, HipoGes and Altamira; the consultancy firms Aura REE and CBRE; and the lawyers J&A Garrigues and Cuatrecasas.

Original story: Expansión (by J. Zuloaga)

Translation: Carmel Drake