Tag: high street stores

Pelayo Capital to Create a New Breogán Park with an Investment of >€60M

15 January 2019 – Eje Prime

Pelayo Capital is throwing itself into the Spanish retail sector during its second year of life. The Galician family office, which is currently working on the conversion of the Dolce Vita shopping centre in A Coruña into a retail park, is planning to replicate the project in other Spanish cities with an investment of more than €90 million, according to Íñigo Veiga, CEO of the company, speaking to EjePrime.

Similarly, the group wants to add high street stores to its portfolio of assets during the course of this year. In this sense, Pelayo Capital is on the hunt for properties located in Madrid, Galicia and Asturias, in particular, in which it plans to invest at least €1 million. “We are not ruling out other cities either, given that our strategy involves working hand in hand with retailers”, said the director.

Breogán Park is the company’s star project, an asset in which the company is going to invest €60 million and which will be inaugurated in the spring of 2021. It is the first project undertaken in Spain to involve the demolition and conversion of a shopping centre into a retail park. “The initiative that takes advantage of the demand for these types of assets in many cities around the country”, said the executive.

The surface area, spanning 45,000 m2, will have 2,500 parking spaces and used to house the Dolce Vita shopping complex until 2014. “It is a great opportunity to build a retail park in A Coruña; we are not going to find any others because there is no land available in the city on which to build a retail park of this size”, explained Veiga.

Pelayo Capital is looking for ways to handle the maturity of shopping centres and the boom in e-commerce in Spain by committing itself to retail parks and commercial premises located on the most prime streets. For this reason, the company has just purchased its first asset at number 103 Calle Hermosilla in Madrid, revealed the director.

“We do not have an investment objective or commitment, because we believe that pressure can lead to errors”, explained Veiga. Saddled between Galicia and Madrid, Pelayo Capital has the support of investors with different profiles and is not averse to the idea of backing the logistics or residential markets in the long term.

The company was created in 2017 hand in hand with Breogán Park, a project that launched it into the midst of the Spanish real estate sector. Although it is also working on the rehabilitation of a residential building in A Coruña, Pelayo Capital has placed its focus on retail and for that reason, it has hired Luis Íñiguez, former director of JLL’s retail division in Spain, as senior advisor to the company.

Original story: Eje Prime (by Berta Seijo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

CBRE: Investment in High Street Premises Will Exceed €1.1bn in 2018

5 July 2018 – Eje Prime

Commercial premises, especially those located on the most prime streets of Spain, are proving highly sought-after. According to CBRE, the high street investment market is going to achieve record figures in 2018, up to a total of €1.1 billion. The culprits? The German fund Deka and Inditex, in addition to the strength of secondary cities in the country.

During the course of the last two years, investment in high street assets remained stable at around €800 million per year, after peaking at €1.01 billion in 2015. In 2018, according to calculations from the real estate consultancy CBRE, the investment volume will exceed the €1 billion threshold again, primarily due to the impact of the sale to Deka of a batch of 16 Zara stores for €400 million and the boost from activity beyond Madrid and Barcelona.

Deka has whereby become a catalyst for the retail investment market in Spain, together with Generali and Union Investment, which also starred in major investment operations during the first few months of 2018.

Deka’s €400 million operation was the largest in the last year and a half, followed by the purchase by Hines of number 17 Paseo de Gracia for €113 million and the acquisition by Generali of number 9 Preciados for €107 million.

Institutional investors are the main drivers of the investment market in this segment, according to the Retail keys in Spain report in CBRE. “In recent years, several overseas institutional investors have entered the Spanish market and many have been active in 2017 and 2018”, according to the document, which points out that Socimis such as Tander, Ores and Silicius have also been interested in the sector.

Madrid and Barcelona are continuing to be the main magnets for high street investment in Spain and, together, they account for 79% of the total expenditure. “Nevertheless, other cities in Spain are booming and demand is rising for investment products in cities such as Bilbao, Valencia, Sevilla and Málaga”, says the document.

The displacement of demand to other cities is a consequence of product shortages and low returns. On the one hand, according to CBRE, operators have accentuated their preferences for prime streets, which has strengthened the shortage of products. “Premises with recently signed contracts are sparking a lot of interest, given that if they reflect market rents, they become a very stable long-term investment”, says the document.

On the other hand, the pressure on returns remains strong and in 2017, they were compressed further still, reaching levels of 3.25% in Madrid and 3.50% in Barcelona for the most prime products. The “historically low” values are repeated in other European cities, with 3.25% in Berlin, 3% in Milan, 2.75% in Paris and 2.25% in Munich.

As a result of those two elements, investor interest is extending to other cities in Spain, although the operations closed tend to be of greater importance, “given that the premises and the rents are lower and the returns are higher”.

With investment of €170 million outside of Barcelona and Madrid in 2017, several purchases stand out such as M&G’s acquisition of the H&M store on Reyes Católicos in Granada as well as of the El Corte Inglés building in Plaza la Magdalena in Sevilla.

Valencia and Bilbao are the markets that, typically, generate the most interest from investors due to the size of the two cities, the importance of their high streets and the role of tourism. The tradition of investment in the segment by local family offices means that returns there are compressed to 4%.

Retail and shopping centres

High street premises accounted for 25% of the total investment in retail in 2017, well behind shopping centres, which accounted for 51% of the total, but ahead of retail parks (15%) and portfolios of supermarkets and hypermarkets (9%) (…).

In Spain in 2017, investment in the Spanish retail market amounted to €3.3 billion. CBRE forecasts that the figure will amount to €2.9 billion in 2018, boosted by high street investment (…).

Original story: Eje Prime (by P. Riaño)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Corpfin Sells 13 Commercial Premises to Swiss Life for €83M

10 July 2018 – Idealista News

The Swiss do not only come to Spain to go on holiday. Through its real estate arm, the insurance company Swiss Life has purchased thirteen premises from the fund Corpfin Capital Prime Retail Assets (Ccpr) for €83 million.

The sales have been carried out through the two Corpfin Socimis that are listed on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB): Corpfin Capital Prime Retail II Socimi (Ccpr II) and Corpfin Capital Prime Retail III Socimi (Ccpr III). The contract for the sale of the portfolio was signed in June, according to Idealista News.

Swiss Life is investing in Spain for the first time. It already tried to enter the  Iberian real estate market with the acquisition of a package of offices from Hispania. The Socimi, which put that portfolio up for sale for €500 million, subsequently pulled out of the sale following the public takeover bid from Blackstone and the political instability in the country.

With assets worth €69.2 billion in the Pan-European market, Swiss Life focuses its investment in the office business, which accounts for 37% of its portfolio, followed by the residential business with 32%. Retail accounts for just 16% of its investments and the remainder of its portfolio is split between the logistics sector, the hotel segment and alternative assets.

In the case of Corpfin, the group founded by Javier Basagoiti created a new Socimi in April with €400 million to invest in high street stores. The roadmap for Basagoiti’s company involves raising €200 million this year to double the capital by the end of 2021.

Original story: Idealista News

Translation: Carmel Drake

Savills IM: Inv’t of €500M per Year Until 2022 Following Purchase of Aguirre Newman

26 June 2018 – Eje Prime

Savills Investment Management (Savills IM) is getting its chequebook out in Spain. The fund manager of the real estate consultancy firm is looking for new investments in the country six months after integrating Zaphir Asset Management into its structure under the framework of the acquisition of Aguirre Newman by Savills. Savills IM’s plans involve investing €500 million per year in Spain until 2022.

According to explanations provided by Fernando Ramírez de Haro, Director of the Savills IM office in Spain, speaking to Eje Prime, the fund manager forecasts building an asset portfolio on the Iberian Peninsula worth €2 billion, up from its current value of €480 million.

The company is now starting an ambitious positioning strategy in Spain, “having completed the integration of Zaphir”. Ramírez de Haro, who leads Savills IM’s office following the corporate operation, served as the Director General of Zaphir since 2007. Savills announced the acquisition of Aguirre Newman in July last year, but the operation was not completed until December when Savills IM integrated Zaphir.

The company is currently analysing investments worth €750 million in Spain, although the group is also considering entering the Portuguese market. Even though in 2017, the company’s most active markets were the United Kingdom, Italy and Japan, the forecasts of Ramírez de Haro indicate that Spain will become the fourth most important European market for the group, behind the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany.

Savills IM’s current portfolio in Spain comprises thirteen assets or projects. Half of them correspond to investments in offices, 25% to retail, 17% to residential and 7% to logistics, according to Ramírez de Haro. One of the most recent operations signed by the group was the purchase, in May, of a hypermarket operated by Eroski in San Sebastián for €48 million.

The executive maintains that the company is looking for opportunities across the four segments, especially in retail and offices. “I do not want to say that logistics is not important, it is and very much so, but it is the segment that is suffering from the most acute shortage in terms of supply”, he said. “In terms of retail, a negative vision is coming from the USA, but for us, that is not the case, provided you look for assets that are not so dependent on online sales, such as retail parks, high street stores, outlets and shopping centres linked to food”, he maintains.

Savills IM combines three types of operations: the first is the management of funds raised in Europe (especially in Germany): the second involves the mandates of global investors; and the third is to support value-added funds in their investments in Europe. Whilst in the first case, the average investment in terms of own funds is between €20 million and €80 million, international mandates tend to be upwards of €100 million and value-added operations typically range between €15 million and €100 million.

The fund manager has a workforce of sixteen people in Spain, fifteen of whom come from the former Zaphir structure and one from Savills IM. The group expects to have 22 employees in five years time.

On the global stage, Savills IM has a workforce of 300 employees and eighteen offices. In 2017, the group recorded transactions worth €5.5 billion: €4.5 billion in Europe and €1 billion in Asia. The company plans to spend €1 billion in own funds in 2018 for the acquisition of new assets in Europe and Asia.

Original story: Eje Prime (by J. Izquierdo & P. Riaño)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Family Office Puts Tesla’s Store on c/Serrano Up For Sale for €7M

18 April 2018 – Eje Prime

The retail sector is hotting up in Madrid. A Spanish family office has put up for sale the store at number 3 Calle Serrano, which is occupied by Tesla, the company specialising in electric cars and led by Elon Musk. Although sources close to the operation have explained to Eje Prime that the process to receive offers has already begun, the estimated price of the asset is around €7 million.

This store has been occupied by Tesla since last September after it signed a lease contract that will continue in force following the sale. The asset has a retail surface area of 247 m2 spread over two floors. There, Tesla has a showroom, a warehouse and the group’s offices in Spain. According to real estate market sources, the consultancy firm CBRE is exclusively leading the sales process.

In recent months, the retail sector has been reactivated in the Spanish capital, with both the placing of premises on the market and the renovation of assets for their subsequent rental. The latest to be added to the portfolio of establishments for sale was the branch that Bankia owns at number 1 Calle Alcalá.

Although the bank already initiated an auction, which was attended by funds such as Arcano and real estate groups such as Renta, who were offering approximately €18 million for the premises, Bankia has decided to wipe the slate clean and launch a new auction process, through which it hopes to raise at least €20 million.

The asset, which, given its façade appeals more to restaurant operators than fashion retailers, is spread over two floors: the first floor spans 458 m2, whilst the basement measures 405 m2.

And from premises for sale to premises sold. In March, the fund manager IBA Capital, together with CBRE Global Investment, finally completed the sale of number 9 Calle Preciados, in Madrid, to the real estate investment vehicle of the insurance company Generali, Generali Real Estate. The Italian group paid €100 million for the asset, which is going to house Pull&Bear’s future flagship store on this high street, one of the most expensive in Spain for opening a store (…).

Investor appetite in 2018 

After closing 2017 with a total investment of €3.5 billion, the sector started 2018 with retail assets up for sale worth €2.5 billion. Moreover, during the course of this year, the volume of retail space on the national map is forecast to increase by 500,000 m2.

At the moment, shopping centres worth €2 billion are up for sale, along with high street products worth another €500 million. This situation guarantees a high degree of product availability for the segment, which is ideal at a time when Spain is very much in the firing line of international investors.

The influence of the retail market on the tertiary sector in 2017 is evidenced by the statistic that 38% of all transactions completed in this market involved retail assets, allowing retail assets to exceed office buildings for the first time ever.

With a volume increase of 36% over the last year, several large shopping centre openings are scheduled for 2018 including Open Sky in Madrid, which will see the arrival of Compagnie de Phalsbourg in Spain, after investing €160 million in the complex.

Similarly, in the Community of Madrid, the shutters will be lifted on X-Madrid, owned by Merlin, and in Málaga, McArthurGlen and Sonae Sierra will inaugurate a new designer outlet centre in the capital of the Costa del Sol. The stock of retail surface area in Spain amounts to 16.5 million m2, up by 1.4% YoY.

Original story: Eje Prime (by Custodio Pareja)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Thor Equities Sells c/Fuencarral 16 to Union Investment

31 January 2018 – Eje Prime

The fund Thor Equities is closing its positions in Spain. The group has sold number 16 Calle Fuencarral to the institutional fund Union Investment. Just before the operation, Thor Equities signed a rental contract to lease the store to the Swedish giant H&M, the second largest fashion retailer in the world, which will open a branch of its Cos chain there.

The establishment has a surface area of 1,320 m2, according to explanations provided in a statement issued by Union Investment and Thor Equities. The five-storey property was constructed in 1900 and was completely renovated in 2017. The fund changed the use of the property in order to convert it into a mega-store, whereby following the trend in the market in the centre of Madrid, as well as the example set by other real estate investors.

The operation, whose amount has not been disclosed, represents the first purchase by Union Investment in the market for high-street stores in Spain, although assets in the retail sector already account for 30% of the portfolio that the fund manages in Europe.

Nevertheless, the group already owned assets in the Spanish market. What’s more, the fund has already started to cash in some of its properties in the country with the sale of the former headquarters of Marsans. The Pórtico Building, located in Campo de las Naciones in Madrid, is up for sale for €130 million, a higher amount than the €115 million that the German investment group paid in 2009 to the now extinct travel company.

Headquartered in Frankfurt, the German company currently has several high profile tenants leasing that property, including: Pepsico, Pullmantur, Nautalia and Beam España, amongst others. With a gross leasable area of 27,000 m2, the Pórtico Building was designed by the architecture studios SOM and Rafael de La-Hoz.

Union Investment’s decision to put this asset on the market comes at a time when there is a distinct shortage of space in the office segment, after the leasing of offices grew by 31% in Madrid in 2017, to 543,000 m2, according to the consultancy Cushman&Wakefield.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

JLL: Retail Inv’t Will Soar To €4,000M+ In 2017

6 November 2017 – Eje Prime

The retail segment is attracting the attention of investment funds and is set a register a new record in 2017. Investment in retail assets is expected to soar by the end of this year to exceed €4,000 million, according to estimates from the real estate consultancy firm JLL. Operations such as the sale of the Mercado de San Miguel and the Mercado de Fuencarral, both in Madrid, will help this segment of the Spanish real estate sector record a new milestone this year.

So far this year, the commercial premises business has already broken all the records and registered the highest level of investment for the last fourteen years. During the nine months to September, the volume of investment in the retail sector amounted to almost €3,488 million, according to the Market Fundamentals report for Q3, compiled by the consultancy firm.

“The inter-annual footfall index in Spain rose by 1.7% in September and retail sales rose by 0.9% with respect to the previous month”, explain professionals in the retail business. This fact, together with the reality that prime rents are continuing to grow at a good pace, means that funds are looking very closely at retail premises.

The large operations involving portfolios of hypermarkets located across Spain stand out, as do the sales of the Mercado de San Miguel and the Gran Vía Alicante shopping centre. Other operations, such as the sale of Mercado de Fuencarral by Activum to AEW for €50 million have also helped to boost business in this segment in Spain.

“In terms of trends in the retail sector, over the last few months, we have seen how the traditional large format retailers are continuing to move into the city centres, convinced that their proximity to consumers will generate greater sales opportunities for them”, explain sources at JLL. Examples include Decathlon’s arrival on Calle Fuencarral and the opening of a Leroy Merlin store in the heart of Barcelona.

Another example is the case of Ikea on Calle Serrano. The Swedish group has just debuted its “test” of its new format, known as Ikea Temporary; it opened the doors of its first establishment in the centre of Madrid, in a building owned by the Loncito family office.

Moreover, last month, Media Markt opened its third urban store in Madrid, in the central Plaza del Carmen, close to the Preciados shopping street. In this way, Media Markt Preciados became the company’s 81st store in Spain and its 11th in Madrid.

Although the brand dedicated to the distribution of consumer electronics has now opened several stores under this “proximity format” in Valencia (Calle de Colón), Madrid (Calle de Alcalá and Paseo de la Castellana) and Barcelona (Plaza Cataluña and the Digital Store on Avenida Diagonal), the company is looking to further consolidate its arrival in Spain’s city centres with this latest opening.

Original story: Eje Prime (by C. Pareja)

Translation: 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

C&W: RE Inv’t In Retail Sector Exceeded €4,300M In 2016

2 February 2017 – Finanzas

Real estate investment in the retail sector – commercial assets – in Spain exceeded €4,300 million in 2016, up by 22% compared to the previous year, thanks to the completion of 45 operations, according to the Marketbeat Retail España report, compiled by the real estate consultancy firm Cushman & Wakefield.

The study indicates that much of this investment came from overseas investors, particularly in the case of shopping centres.

Nevertheless, overall, domestic capital increased to account for 67% of financing in 2016, compared to 8% in 2007, due to the rise of the Socimis.

The CEO of Cushman & Wakefield in Spain, Oriol Barrachina, said that retail is one of the “clearest” indications that the market has become globalised.

Moreover, Barrachina commented on the need to increase “transformation” and “diversification” to generate wealth “in other neighbourhoods”.

In relation to retail complexes, the report indicated that they covered a total surface area of 16.8 million m2 – 66% of the total “stock” – spread across 672 locations.

More specifically, shopping centres covered a surface area of more than 11 million m2, with the addition of 175,000 m2 in 2016.

Regarding this year, the Director of Retail Leasing at Cushman & Wakefield in Spain, Cristina Pérez, highlighted the “positive trend” expected in the sector, thanks to the construction of another 100,000 m2 of space, with two centres in Madrid (Sambil and Plaza Río 2) and another one in Barcelona (phase 2 of Glòries).

In terms of retail parks in Spain, the supply now exceeds the European average, with a total surface area of 2.8 million m2.

In terms of high street premises, the head of the area, Robert Travers, explained that it has reached “historical highs”, thanks to the improvement in the economy, growth in tourism and rising consumer confidence.

Moreover, Travers noted that the luxury sector is suffering from a “major” change, following “eight years of euphoria”, due to the effect if terrorism, concerns over the Asian markets and a rise in taxes in China.

In this sense, the Head of High Street confirmed that the growth in luxury stores in Spain is going to be “moderate”.

Cushman & Wakefield’s report also contains information about the boom in e-commerce – which has grown globally by30% since 2007 – and its effect on the real estate sector.

Pérez underlined that it is now necessary “to offer a different social experience” to get “people out of the house” and visiting shopping centres in person.

The Head of Retail Leasing acknowledged that 77% of Spain’s shopping centres “need some kind of improvement”, including modifications to bring them closer to the e-commerce segment.

Original story: Finanzas

Translation: Carmel Drake