The Hatchwell’s Socimi Excem Plans a €300M Capital Increase

18 March 2019 – El Confidencial 

The Socimi Excem, which is linked to the Hatchwell family, considers that its particular business model is immune to the new Rental Act. The company specialises in the rental of shared flats to university students and young professionals. As such, its clients are not subject to some of the aspects of the new legislation that are causing the most concern, such as the new contract terms (five or six years) or the limits on avals and guarantees.

Each young person pays the Socimi an average of €600 per month by way of rent and typically stays in the property for less than a year. That allows the vehicle to generate a gross return of 7.46%.

Moreover, in Spain, around 400,000 students have to find accommodation every year and 85% of them want a shared flat, rather than a hall of residence. As such, Excem is convinced that it needs to expand its business model across Spain and, to this end, is planning to undertake a €300 million capital increase this summer to finance that expansion.

Currently, Excem has 42 flats comprising 288 rooms, spanning a residential surface area of 8,000 m2. The company wants to expand to Barcelona and Valencia first, although it also has cities such as Málaga, Sevilla, Bilbao and Vigo on its radar. The aim is to grow the portfolio to include 4,000 beds across the whole Peninsula.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Ruth Ugalde)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Excem to Promote 5,000 Luxury Homes in the Costa del Sol & Murcia

21 November 2018 – Eje Prime

Excem is increasing its commitment to the luxury residential sector. The company owned by the Hatchwell family has set itself the objective of promoting 5,000 luxury homes on the Costa del Sol and Murcia, within the context of the development of its LOV Real Estate division. To launch these homes, which will follow in the footsteps of a development on Calle Fuencarral in Madrid, Excem has created the brand Solomon Homes.

Excem’s plans with LOV Real Estate involve starting to promote its entire land bank in 2019. The first projects to be commercialised in the south include four promotions in Condado de Alhama, one of the best resorts on the Costa Cálida. In that complex, LOV has already started work on the construction of Villa Primavera, Villa Amapola and Villa Atardecer, as well as Edificio Poniente. The company plans to hand over those homes next summer.

Further south, on the Costa del Sol, the property developer is finalising the signing of several projects with “the same model of avant-garde and unique architecture” in the area, on the fashionable coastline of the Spanish residential market. The company expects to achieve a return of more than 20% in each of its projects.

The starting point for luxury

Nevertheless, Excem’s starting point with LOV Real Estate will be a 25-home development on Calle Fuencarral in Madrid. The group’s first development will involve an investment of €14 million and will be located at number 142 of the Madrilenian street, right in the heart of the Spanish capital.

The company has already started work and its pre-sales amount to 80% with just four homes left to market. The buyers include investors and architects, explain sources at Excem (…).

The property developer plans to handover those homes, which will have between one and three bedrooms, before the end of 2019. The homes will have surface areas ranging from 55 m2 to 175 m2, and prices starting at €400,000, and going up to €1.5 million (…).

Excem: true to its roadmap 

The last investment vehicle launched by Excem Real Estate, the real estate division of the Excem Group, was Siwork, specialising in co-working and for which the group has partnered with WeWork, as Eje Prime revealed. With Excem Capital Partners Siwork, the group stays true to its roadmap: to be present in the Spanish real estate sector with three Socimis, diversified by type of asset and focused on millennial clients.

The first of the three companies launched by the Israeli family in Spain was Excem Capital Partners Sociedad de Inversión Residencial. Specialising in rental housing aimed at millennials, the company debuted on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB) in July worth €17 million. Currently, the company owns 28 assets in Spain and has several shareholders ranging from private investors to business people and family offices.

Besides Excem Capital Partners Sociedad de Inversión Residencial, the Hatchwell family also operates in the Spanish real estate sector with Situr, a firm specialising in tourist properties such as apartments and hostels. The investment target for this second Socimi is approximately €250 million between now and the rest of 2018. The company has set itself the objective of having 3,500 beds in a dozen buildings, located primarily in Madrid and Barcelona, as well as in other tourist cities around the country.

With the activation of Siwork, the plans for this new company involve carrying out an investment of €200 million to acquire a dozen buildings in Spain’s main cities.

The Hatchwell family’s links with the real estate world date back to the beginning of the 1970s, when Mauricio Hatchwell Toledano founded the group, specialising first in cement and later in technology and real estate. Nowadays, the company is led by his children David, Philip and Kareen Hatchwell Altaras.

Original story: Eje Prime (by J. Izquierdo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Excem Debuts on the MAB with a Market Value of €16.8M

9 July 2018 – Expansión

The Socimi dedicated to the rental of rooms for young people is going to make its stock market debut at a price of €1.40 per share. The Socimi is going to debut with a portfolio of 28 homes, which contain 181 rooms for rent, all located in the centre of Madrid.

The real estate firm Excem, which was constituted in 2015, has the aim of investing in urban properties located in central areas of Madrid, Barcelona and other main cities in Spain. It targets properties that are suitable for renovation and redecoration and subsequently leases out rooms to students and young professionals.

Currently, the Socimi is looking to extend its activity in the capital to other cities with “high demand and limited supply of these types of assets for rent”, including Barcelona, Sevilla, Valencia, Málaga, Bilbao and Santiago de Compostela, according to information provided in the explanatory prospectus that accompanies its debut on the MAB.

Around 40% of the company is controlled by Excem, a group owned by the Hatchwell family. In fact, the Socimi is chaired by David Hatchwell, who started his professional career in Goldman Sachs and HSBC before joining the group.

With the aim of undertaking its investment and growth strategy, Excem’s Socimi has conducted a number of capital increases since 2016 and has mortgaged all 28 of the homes that it holds in its portfolio.

At the moment, it has an indebtedness level equivalent to 38.5% of the value of its assets, well below the leverage limit of 70% that the company has imposed on itself.

“HOMIII.COM”.

The Socimi markets the rental of its homes through its own online platform (www.homiii.com) and by subleasing through other specialist companies. Since September last year, it has had an agreement with Uniplaces, a company from the United Kingdom specialising in reserving accommodation for students in a number of European cities. According to the prospectus, at the end of March, the firm had 175 lease contracts for its rooms (96.7% of its portfolio) with different tenants.

By virtue of the contracts, the tenants pay a monthly rent and make a contribution towards shared utilities (water, electricity, gas, internet and central heating) after handing over a deposit equivalent to one month’s worth of both concepts by way of guarantee.

Excem has the aim of achieving a gross return on each asset of between 4% and 6%, a percentage calculated as gross income from rental over the investment made. The Socimi has been created with the option of setting itself an expiry date, given that it does not rule out selling its properties once the minimum period of three years established for Socimis has come to an end, or dissolving the company after the seventh year, “depending on what the shareholders agree on the basis of the performance of the company, as well as the current and future properties in the portfolio”.

Original story: Expansión 

Translation: Carmel Drake

The Hatchwell Family Launches a Luxury Housing Developer

21 December 2017 – Expansión

The Excem group, led by the second generation of the Hatchwell family, has decided to strengthen its commitment to the Spanish real estate sector, which it broke into a few months ago with the launch of several Socimis.

Now, the Hatchwell family has placed its focus on the house building sector, a booming market in Spain. To this end, the company has created a property developer specialising in luxury housing: LOV Real Estate. “Our objective is to position ourselves in the medium-high end market. For that reason, we are launching LOV Real Estate now; it is going to be the brand of our property developer for building luxury homes with a forecast return for investors of more than 20%”, says Andrés Sánchez Lozano, CEO of Excem Real Estate.

Following its creation, LOV has already chosen its first project: the building located at number 142 Calle Fuencarral in Madrid, in the heart of the Chamberí neighbourhood. There, Excem has purchased a seven-storey building and with a total investment of around €14 million, it will build 25 homes, with between 1- and 3-bedrooms and prices ranging between €400,000 and €1.5 million. “LOV RE’s commitment on Fuencarral includes design architecture, bioclimatic features and ecological mobility elements. The large garden terrace with swimming pool, gym and meeting room for residents also stands out as a unique feature in the area.

LOV Real Estate has been structured as another investment line within the Hatchwell family’s real estate business, launched at the beginning of the year (2017) with the aim of investing €600 million in homes, hostels and offices through three Socimis. Currently, two are operational: one specialising in the residential sector, which owns 27 properties after investing around €14 million and which will debut on the MAB in May 2018.

The other, specialising in hostels and tourist apartments (Situr) has invested €22 million in a single asset in the centre of Madrid.

Original story: Expansión (by Rocío Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Excem Launches 2nd Socimi & Spends €22M On 1st Asset In Madrid

31 July 2017 – Eje Prime

Excem is on a roll. The company has just launched its second Socimi, Sociedad de Inversión Turística (Situr), dedicated to hostels and tourist apartments. The group, led by the Hatchwell family, will invest €250 million on the launch of this new investment vehicle, which will be led by Amir Yerushalmi, former director of the US fund Gaia. Moreover, the new entity has just acquired its first asset in Madrid for €22 million.

In March, as Eje Prime announced, the company activated its second company specialising in hostels for young people, whereby following the roadmap drawn by the group when it proposed the project, which also includes the creation of a third Socimi specialising in assets destined for use as co-working spaces.

The company constituted the hostel business, which operates under the name Excem Capital Partners Hospitality, and which at the time had just one administrator, Philip Hatchwell Altarar.

The investment to be undertaken by this second Socimi will amount to €250 million between now and 2018, approximately. The company has set itself the objective of owning 3,500 beds in a dozen buildings, primarily in Madrid and Barcelona, as well as in other tourist cities around the country.

Excem’s second project responds to a “latent demand”, according to the company, which maintains that each year young people from all over the world spend more than $230,000 million travelling and that there are only six companies in the world specialising in offering them high-quality accommodation at competitive prices.

With the company structure already in place, Excem has acquired its first asset through Situr. The company has purchased an asset located at number 3 on Calle Postigo de San Martín, in Madrid. That property, which is located opposite the Monasterio de Las Descalzas and Puerta del Sol, has a surface area of 4,000 m2 and 400 beds. Excem has spent €22 million on this purchase.

Excem’s second Socimi has been created with the aim of acquiring between ten and fifteen buildings, during the first phase and starting in Madrid, to build up a portfolio of 3,500 beds in the historical centres of the main cities in Spain, Europe and the USA, which will be managed as hostels.

In addition to this first asset in Madrid and a second committed property in Málaga, Situr has already chosen more than 30 buildings in main cities across Spain to continue its acquisition plan. According to the company, “we expect to undertake a capital increase for Excem Socimi Situr between September and December 2017 and start to debut on the MAB in 2019” (…).

Original story: Eje Prime (by C. Pareja)

Translation: Carmel Drake