Tag: HIG Capital

HIG Capital Acquires Two Office Buildings in Madrid from Meridia for €25 Million

1 October 2019 – The venture capital firm HIG Capital has acquired two buildings at Calle Gobelas 41-49 in La Florida, Madrid from Meridia for 25 million euros, according to market sources.

The two buildings have a combined area of ​​15,000 square meters. One of the two was renovated recently, while the other will undergo a complete remodelling.

The buildings are part of an asset portfolio that Meridia Capital acquired in 2015 from GE Capital Real Estate. Of the eleven assets in that portfolio, seven are located in Barcelona, ​​while the other four are in Madrid. Two of the latter were the properties on Calle Gobelas.

Original Story: Eje Prime – Marta Casado Pla / Marc Vidal Ordeig

Adaptation/Translation: Richard D. K. Turner

HIG Capital Acquires Two Office Buildings in La Florida, Madrid

21 September 2019 – The US venture capital fund HIG Capital has finalised the acquisition of two office buildings in the neighbourhood of La Florida, in north-western Madrid. The two buildings have a total surface area of 15,000 m2. The previous owner recently refurbished one of the properties, while HIG plans to renovate the second to attract high-quality, long-term tenants.

Based in Miami, HIG Capital has AUMs of €34 billion.

Original Story: Expansión – Rocío Ruiz

Adaptation/Translation: Richard D. K. Turner

Europe GRI 2017: 11-12 September, Paris

12 July 2017 – Press Release

Aura REE & GRI Club have come together for Europe GRI. Senior real estate investors, developers, lenders, asset owners, major corporates and planners connect, share ideas and strengthen relationships. The collegial discussions enable you to interact and engage – much like an after-dinner conversation in your own living room. Identify like-minded peers, build relationships, and continue the conversation afterwards.

Members and non-members are welcome. If you would find it useful to join your peers at this exclusively senior-level club meeting, you can register here.

Register | Programme

Confirmed Participants include:

Brian Betel, Managing Partner, ASG Iberia Advisors
Steven Broch,  CIO, Aerium Group
Hunt Doering, Managing Director, Baupost Group International
Michael Zerda, Managing Director, Blackstone
Dale Lattanzio, Managing Partner, DRC Capital

Pedro Abella Langa, General Manager, H.I.G. Capital
Gregory Clerc, Managing Director, Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Duncan MacPherson, Managing Director & Head of Debt, Starwood Capital Europe Advisers
Cristina Pérez Liz, Managing Director, Kennedy Wilson
Norbert Müller, Managing Director, Deutsche Pfandbriefbank

Manuel Holgado, Partner, VKronos Investment Group
Tom Rowley, Managing Director, Angelo, Gordon Europe
Trish Barrigan, Senior Partner, Benson Elliot Capital Management
Michael Abel, Managing Director, TPG
Tavis Cannel,  Managing Director, Goldman Sachs International

Manuel Enrich, Investor Relations Director, Sareb
Miguel Pereda, CEO, Grupo Lar
Nic Fox, Partner & Head of Middle Europe, Europa Capital
Fraser Denton, Managing Director, UK & European Investments
David Matheson, SVP, MD Director Investments-Europe, Oxford Properties Group

Jeffrey Dishner, Senior Managing Director,  Starwood Capital Europe Advisers
Chris Evans, Founding Partner, Hamilton Hotel Partners
Ekaterina Avdonina, Managing Director, Delin Capital Asset Management
Christian Nickels-Teske, Head of Treasury Europe, Prologis Ian Worboys, CEO, P3 Logistic Parks 

Peter Cole, Chief Investment Officer, Hammerson
Carrie Hiebeler, Senior Investment Officer, Ventas, Inc.
Gordon Black, Senior Managing Director, Co-Head Europe, Heitman
Gregory Lanter,  Vice President Global Development, Club Méditerranée

Sessions Include:

Residential in Spain – Is product scarcity solved by the acquisition of developers?
NPLs – The last chance saloon?
Retail in Spain – Primary vs. Secondary cities
Co-Investment – As deals mature, will partners get their hands burnt?
European Gateway Cities – Where’s the smart money heading?
The Global Shift Towards Mediterranean Hospitality – New regions or new money?
Modern Retail – Convenience, leisure, technology or community?
Residential Alternatives – Are great operating partners essential or overrated?
What is Real Estate These days? – Financial asset or a service?

For event participation, contact:

Loredana Carollo | Club Director Spain
+44 (0) 20 7121 5089 | loredana.carollo@griclub.org | www.griclub.org

Original story: Press Release

Edited by: Carmel Drake

CBRE: RE Inv’t Amounted To €3,417M In Q1 2017

6 April 2017 – Expansión

Investors’ appetite for real estate assets in Spain is continuing in 2017. After two record-breaking years, the pace has been maintained during the first three months of this year, with real estate purchases amounting to €3,417 million, according to the consultancy firm CBRE.

This figure represents an increase of 50% with respect to the same period last year. “The figure in 2017 reflects the fact that interest in buying in Spain has not slowed down at all and that although 2016 closed with a fast pace, there are still a lot of investors out there and a lot of liquidity in the Spanish real estate market. Moreover, the political and economic uncertainties of 2016 have now disappeared”, explained Mikel Marco-Gardoqui, Head of Investment at CBRE España.

Amongst this buyer furore, international investors are playing a leading role, accounting for 70% of the total volume disbursed during Q1, according to the consultancy firm’s report.

Of those, the most active have been the US funds, such as GreenOak, CBRE Global Investors (which acquired the Barclays offices in Plaza de Colón), Hines (the new owner of Popular’s headquarters in Barcelona) and HIG Capital, in terms of tertiary assets, and Värde (the majority shareholder of the property developers Vía Célere and Aelca) and Blackstone in the case of purchases in the residential sector. “International investors are primarily looking for opportunities in retail (both shopping centres and high street stores) and offices, although increasingly more funds are looking for opportunities in residential land and logistics”, said Marco-Gardoqui.

After the US funds, investors from the United Kingdom have been the most active in 2017, accounting for 29% of the total investment figure. Of those, Intu Properties stands out the most. The British company, which specialises in shopping centres, starred in the largest ever purchase in the Spanish retail market, by paying €530 million for the Madrid Xanadú shopping centre, in Arroyomolinos. “Core and core plus investors account for around 40% of the money invested in Spain, whilst those dedicated to adding value represent another 40%; by contrast, opportunistic funds now account for the remaining 20%.

By type of properties, retail assets (shopping centres and high street stores) have been the star products in the investment market, accounting for purchases amounting to €1,365 million in Q1. The sale and purchase of offices amounted to €646 million, according to CBRE’s figures, whilst investment in hotels stood at €564 million, followed by residential assets (€457 million) and logistics properties (€241 million) – the remaining €124 million corresponds to individual assets. “The figure in the hotel sector is noteworthy, given that during the first three months of 2017, the sector has achieved almost 30% of the record-breaking figure it registered in 2016 (€2,000 million)”, said Lola Martínez, Head of Research at CBRE.

Socimis

The Socimis, the other active profile alongside the foreign funds, spent €643 million buying up assets during the first quarter of 2017. Of that figure, Merlin accounted for almost half (around €300 million), with two significant operations: the purchase of a logistics portfolio from Saba and the acquisition of Torre Agbar, after the project to convert that property into a five-star hotel failed to materialise. “The Socimis continue to be major players in the investor market, and they will continue that role, with their respective specialisation strategies”, predicts the expert from CBRE.

Whilst international funds have starred in operations amounting to more than €100 million, domestic investors (primarily family offices) have become the major competitors against the insurance companies in operations ranging between €30 million and €40 million, accounting for 11% of the total volume, according to Marco-Gardoqui.

After a record investment volume of €14,000 million in 2016, the experts believe that this year, the figure will amount to around €10,000 million, which was the volume achieved at the height of the boom (2007).

Original story: Expansión (Rocío Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

HIG Acquires Malaga Residential Complex

24 January 2017 – Property Week

A client of the private equity firm HIG Capital has acquired the 430-unit Valle Romano apartment complex in Estepona, Málaga.

The property, which includes swimming pools, restaurants and a gym, has a total surface area of about 495,000 sq ft.

“This is our seventh investment in Spain in the past three years”, said Riccardo Dallolio, Managing Director at HIG in London.

“Spain represents an important part of our European strategy and we continue to seek additional small and mid-cap, value-add, investment opportunities to increase HIG’s presence in this market”.

HIG is based in the USA but has offices in 8 countries around the world, and currently manages more than €22bn of equity capital.

Original story: Property Week (by Emanuele Midolo)

Edited by: Carmel Drake

Investment Funds Are Still Cautious About Buying Land

10 May 2016 – Idealista

International funds are still finding good investment opportunities in Spain, above all assets owned by Sareb and the banks. Their main objectives include achieving double-digit returns in the office, retail and residential markets. Meanwhile, they are still hesitant about throwing themselves whole-heartedly into the purchase of residential land and construction of homes, although they regard those an investments that have a future.

The economic crisis and subsequent decline of the real estate sector attracted opportunistic funds in search of opportunities in Spain. Now it is completely normal to find these, and other types of funds, in the real estate sector. “The funds were looking for the best investment opportunities with the highest, fastest returns”, said Pedro Abellá, Director of the Real Estate team at HIG Capital, during a forum about investment in the real estate market organised as part of SIMA, which ran from 5-8 May.

“The Spanish real state market is more mature and the investors that are arriving now are coming to add value to the assets through their management. They are no longer in such a hurry to divest, but they are still convinced by the high returns”, said Abellá.

The general decrease in prices in the sector during the crisis created investment opportunities for these funds, which included not only opportunistic funds, but also more established players. Over the years, and with the sector well on its way towards normalisation, experts are continuing to see investment opportunities, above when it comes to assets owned by Sareb and the banks.

The commitment to invest in real estate assets is currently concentrated in the office, retail and even residential home segments; land for development is also on the list, but the experts urge caution. “Property development requires another type of investment and generates other kinds of returns for investors. Not all of the funds are willing to bear the risk of property development”, said Gregg Gilbert, Director for Spain at Benson Elliot Capital Management.

“We are accustomed to other types of investments, where profits are obtained quickly. We should be aware of the fact that we will find returns from property developments. But it is still too early for those returns to be very great”, he said.

The funds are committed to providing experience and capital to renew the assets that they are acquiring, above all offices and hotels, where some investment opportunities still exist. “The stock of offices and hotels in Spain is vast, but it has become somewhat out-dated. It is time to review the supply, in the absence of assets at reasonable prices offering the returns being sought”, said Gilbert.

Those funds that do decide to invest in land should not hesitate to join forces with property developers and construction companies to build homes, but according to experts in the real estate sectors, they are focusing on buildable land in the best locations, which ends up being a small investment for the market as a whole. “There is still a lot of land that needs to be developed, but it is not buildable and it will take some time for it to become urban land. But that all depends on the laws applied by each administration”, said Mario Verdyguer, Director of Investments at Solvia.

Original story: Idealista (by David Marrero)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Project Gaudí: Oaktree Acquires Reduced Portfolio For €260M

25 June 2015 – CoStar Finance

Oaktree Capital Management has finalised the purchase of a reduced non-performing loan portfolio from FMS Wertmanagement (Project Gaudi) paying around €260m in cash, after a back bid sale of a Bilbao shopping centre to Grupo Lar and the removal of two loans prior to transaction close.

According to CoStar News, Grupo Lar, the Spanish developer and investor, has acquired the 1.35m sq ft Megapark Barakaldo shopping centre in Bilbao, in a back to back bid for just over €150 million.

Megapark Barakaldo was previously owned by Resolution Property, who acquired the retail centre for more than €200 million in January 2006, from Arcona Iberia and its joint venture partners, financed by Hypo Real Estate Bank International and the Royal Bank of Scotland. Resolution Property sold Megapark Barakaldo to another investor in 2012, which inherited the encumbered debt.

In addition, FMS Wertmanagement removed two loans from the original €735 million portfolio, contraining 18 NPL loans (Project Gaudi):

1) The first was a loan securing the circa 333,700 sq ft Plaza Éboli shopping centre in Pinto in the south of Madrid. HIG Capital recently acquired Plaza Éboli from Doughty Hanson, the UK private equity firm, for €30m, repaying the loan back to FMS Wertmanagement at par.

2) The second was a combined €125 millioin investment, development and VAT financing facility, granted to Bluespace, formerly known as Blue Self Storage, in July 2007. It was used to fund the acquisition of 17 self-storage properties – in Barcelona, Madrid and Valencia. FMS Wertmanagement has retained that non-performing loan.

These two removed loans are thought to account for an unpaid loan balance of around €100 million in aggregate. This reduces the original nominal value of Project Gaudi’s NPL portfolio (€735 million) to an unpaid balance of €635 million.

CoStar News understands that Oaktree paid €410m for the slightly slimmer Project Gaudi, reflecting a discount of 35.4%.

Furthermore, the immediate back bid purchase of Megapark Barakaldo by Grupo Lar for circa €150 millions implies the net price that Oaktree paid was €260 million, which was likely paid on an all-cash basis by Oaktree given the final size of the deal.

FMS Wertmanagement closed the sale of Project Gaudi with Oaktree two weeks ago. This was the German bad bank’s maiden NPL portfolio sale in Europe.

CoStar News understands that FMS Wertmanagement is considering two further country-focused loan portfolio sales for the bad bank’s Netherlands and Italian sub and non-performing loans. (…)

Original story: CoStar Finance (by James Wallace)

Edited by: Carmel Drake

HIG Capital Buys ‘Plaza Éboli’ Shopping Centre For €30M

24 June 2015 – Expansión

This purchase represents HIG Capital’s eighteenth investment in Europe since early 2013 and its fifth in Spain. The private equity fund is based in Miami. 

The private equity fund HIG Capital has acquired the Plaza Éboli shopping centre in the Madrilenian suburb of Pinto…from the venture capital firm Doughty Hanson.

The company has not revealed the consideration paid, but reports say it amounted to €30 million.

The shopping centre, which opened in 2005, has a surface area of more than 31,000 m2 and its tenants include large retail distributors, such as Inditex, H&M, C&A and Cortefiel.

HIG is continuing to expand its exceptional portfolio of real estate assets in Europe, which span both financing and capital contributions. It places a special emphasis on opportunities in small- and medium-sized companies, its target market.

HIG’s Director, Ahmed Hamdani, says that the purchase of the Plaza Éboli shopping centre “demonstrates” the company’s capacity to “identify assets with strong growth potential” and to close “complex acquisitions” in short time frames. (…)

Since it was founded in 1993, HIG has invested and managed more than 200 companies all over the world. The firm’s current portfolio comprises 80 companies with aggregate annual revenues of more than €22,000 million.

Original story: Expansión (by M. L. Verbo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Doughty Finalises The Sale Of Two Shopping Centres

23 April 2015 – Expansión

Activity continues apace in the shopping centre sector. The private equity firm Doughty Hanson is finalising the sale of two shopping centres in Spain, namely Plaza Eboli in Pinto (Madrid) and El Rosal in Ponferrada (León), which it acquired in 2011 for €120 million.

The two properties were acquired by Doughty in March 2011 and four years later, they are getting ready to change hands. The company paid the Portuguese real estate company Sonae Sierra €120 million for both assets. Now it is selling them for €115 million, according to sources close to the transaction.

For the centre in León, Doughty has received an offer from the Socimi Lar España for €85 million. In the case of Plaza Éboli, the fund is finalising its sale to the US investor HIG for around €30 million.

Plaza Éboli was opened in March 2005 and has a constructible surface area of 62,000 square metres, over four floors, of which 31,306 square metres are used for retail space. The main tenants include E. Leclerc, which has a supermarket, and a chain of cinemas, which occupies more than 2,000 square metres. Moreover, the centre has 1,004 parking spaces.

In the case of El Rosal, the property was opened in October 2007. It has a surface area of more than 151,000 square metres of which 50,851 square metres are used for retail space, according to the Spanish Association of Shopping Centres. It also has 2,450 parking spaces.

With its acquisition of El Rosal, the Socimi Lar España is continuing to increase the number of assets in its portfolio (especially retail premises and logistics warehouses), which were valued at €406 million at 31 December 2014. These include the shopping centres L’Anec Balu in Castelldefels (Barcelona) and Albacenter, in Albacete.

Socimi

Already this year, the Socimi controlled by Miguel Pereda has acquired the As Termas shopping centre in La Coruña for €67 million.

The real estate company debuted on the stock exchange in March 2014 with €400 million of capital to invest; funds it had received from large institutional investors, such as Pimco.

Meanwhile, the interest expressed by the US fund HIG Capital in the Madrid shopping centre reflects the investor frenzy between large international funds. In the case of HIG, it closed its first real estate acquisition purchase in 2013 when it acquired almost one thousand homes from Sareb, as part of the so-called portfolio Bull.

Original story: Expansión (by R. Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Banking Asset Funds of Sareb Turn Out to Be Counter-Productive

5/09/2014 – Inmodiario

It is difficult to find out how are faring Sareb‘s Banking Asset Funds (or BAFs). They were established by the bad bank in order to sell some of its REO assets but in fact this is not what they do. Sareb‘s website offers absolutely no information about the Funds and the first trace one may come across is the site of the National Stock Market Commission (the CNMV) and its updates (if) available on the topic.

Once the information localized, one learns that in the first half of 2014, BAFs ‘Bull‘ and ‘Teide‘ brought a joint loss of €6.4 million as the €34.4 million amount obtained from the sale of 437 properties seem to be insufficient to defray expenses of these vehicles. The biggest volume of the equity goes to Sareb itself in shape of repayments.

The ‘Bull‘ Fund sold 235 properties for €15.75 million in total and still it closed the half year results with a €2.84 million loss. Created as a joint venture with HIG Capital on 26th July 2013, the fund encompassed 1.687 housing units (939 homes, 550 parking spaces, 21 retails and 177 storage rooms). HIG holds a 51% stake in the BAF, while Sareb – 49%. During the first year of its existence, the ‘Bull‘ portfolio shrank to 1.322 properties.

This Banking Asset Fund was legally established on December 13th under management of Intermoney Titulizacion. Rapid refinancing by its shareholders helped to reduce its €93 million debt before it received another credit line of €10 million.

In case of the Teide BAF, Fortress, which holds it together with Sareb, does not take any risk in spite of having an 85% share in it. All 2.441 properties from this portfolio could start being marketed after the bad bank absorbed an €88 million share issue and lent another €58 million. Then, a credit line of €15 million made it complete.

During the first ten days of its lifespan, the ‘Teide‘ Fund lost €2 million and its total H1 2014 loss showed €3.53 million in the red. During this time, 202 properties left the portfolio (+€18.7 million from the sales) and around €41.000 has been earned from rentals of 37 units.

In July, Sareb conveyed its share in ‘Teide‘ to Deutsche Bank.

 

Original article: Inmodiario (by Juan C. Martinez)

Translation: AURA REE