Tag: Hotel Byblos

Ayco Plans To Raise Up To €100M Through A Capital Increase

21 November 2017 – Expansión

The property developer Ayco plans to carry out a capital increase amounting to between €50 million and €100 million to allow new investors to acquire shares and to accelerate its business plan for the next few years. “We would like to carry out this capital increase, which has been authorised by the General Shareholders’ Meeting, at some point in 2018. For us, it will represent our definitive return to the market”, explained the firm’s President and CEO, Francisco García Beato.

Ayco is the oldest listed real estate company in Spain. The property developer, founded in 1941, with the name Inmobiliaria Alcázar and in which the Valencian businessman Onofre Miguel held a stake at the time, was one of the many victims of the real estate crisis that took hold in 2007. The property developer went on to complete a restructuring process, involving the transfer of some of its assets to Sareb at the end of 2014, and several months later, it welcomed the entry of new investors, including Alpha Moonlight, amongst others.

“After successfully completing the restructuring process, the company, which is currently listed on the “open outcry market”, is the ideal vehicle for investors looking for transparency, governance and to make their investments liquid through the stock market”, added García.

Ayco, which has own funds amounting to €8 million and a market capitalisation of €26 million, is currently working on a property development project in Palma de Mallorca, involving the construction of 24 homes on independent plots. It also owns a plot measuring 25,733 m2 between the municipalities of Gibraltar and La Línea de la Concepción, where it is building a four-star hotel with 250 rooms.

Hotel Byblos

In addition, last year, Ayco purchased Hotel Byblos (in Mijas), one of the most iconic establishments on the Costa del Sol in its heydey, for €9.75 million. This hotel, which has been closed for six years, used to be owned by the property developer Aifos, which filed for insolvency in 2009. Following a comprehensive renovation, the company plans to reopen the hotel – which will have 288 rooms, of which 65 will be newly built luxury suites – in the summer of 2019.

To this end, the firm is currently holding negotiations with hotel operators interested in participating in the project, from both a management and financing perspective. “Having a significant volume of resources tied up in a single asset has an opportunity cost. The ideal scenario would be for us to identify an operational and financial partner that would allow us to retain control and in turn participate in the generation of value for the project”.

García revealed that Ayco is negotiating with one international chain that does not currently have a presence in Spain and one Spanish hotel operator. In both cases, the partners work with real estate investors.

Ayco also owns land with a buildable surface area of 85,000 m2 in Málaga, Sevilla and Cádiz, where it plans to build around 800 homes. Moreover, it is evaluating operations to buy plots for the construction of another 1,000 homes in Andalucía, the Balearic Islands, Madrid and the north of Spain. Specifically, it plans to spend €15 million on the execution of those purchase opportunities.

The company will close 2017 with a turnover of around €5 million and a net profit of €500,000. It expects to generate earnings of €10 million in 2018 and of up to €24 million in 2022.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Irea: Investors Spent €184M On 8 Hotels In Málaga In 2016

16 January 2017 – Málaga Hoy

Investors have set their sights on Málaga and are placing a special emphasis on the hotel sector, in light of the visitor and occupancy rate data being registered month after month there, both in the capital as well as along the rest of the Costa del Sol, with the consequent yields that they are generating.

These investors, which include domestic and international companies and funds spent €184 million on eight major hotel operations in the province last year, according to comments made on Thursday by Gonzalo Gutiérrez, Analyst in the Hotels Department at the consultancy firm Irea, in his presentation in Madrid of the Overview of the Hotel Investment Market in Spain in 2016. This amount is less than the €223 million registered in 2015, but Gutiérrez highlighted that all investment records were broken in Spain during 2015, which means that the volume recorded in 2016 “was very good”.

To calculate these figures, Irea includes the sale and purchase of hotels that already exist, as well as of buildings and land that are acquired for conversion into hotels. However, it does not include amounts relating to possible renovations performed at each establishment or for each project. Of the eight operations completed in the province in 2016, six involved the purchase of hotels already in operation and two involved the conversion into hotels of buildings that were previously used for other purposes.

Málaga capital accounted for half of those projects. The Hotel Tryp Málaga Alameda changed hands for the second time in less than a year. Merlin Properties, which recently purchased a portfolio containing several hotels in Spain, including the Malagan establishment, from Testa, sold the same package of hotels to the French investment fund Fonciére des Murs on 30 December, and communicated the sale officially on 2 January. Merlin sold 19 hotels in Spain to the French fund for €535 million. Gutiérrez also said that another hotel was sold in the capital but that he was unable to reveal the name or the amount paid for confidentiality reasons. Also in Málaga capital, the German group Activum purchased the Palacio del Marqués de la Sonora on Calle Granada to convert it into a hotel and another group acquired the building at number 10 on Calle Larios for the same purpose.

In the rest of the province, there were four other major hotel operations in 2016. The most talked about was the sale of the Hotel Byblos in Mijas, which was acquired by the Madrilenian group Ayco for €60 million. The plan is to renovate the property, open it again and restore the luxury tourism market that it used to serve decades ago. The Incosol, another iconic establishment, which had filed for bankruptcy, was acquired by a company owned by Banco Sabadell called HI Partners, for €20 million. Meanwhile, a domestic group purchased Hotel Las Palomas in Torremolinos; and Hotel Costa Park in Torremolinos, which has 388 rooms, was included in the package that Merlin sold to the French group.

Gutiérrez forecasts that 2017 will be positive given that “the Vincci Estrella del Mar was sold for more than €20 million and that other operations are being analysed, which will be closed this year”. The expert noted that Málaga is the fifth most attractive destination for hotel investors after Madrid, Barcelona, the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands.

Original story: Málaga Hoy (by Ángel Recio)

Transltion: Carmel Drake

Ayco Buys Hotel Byblos In Mijas For €60M

26 September 2016 – Real Estate Press

As a result of this operation, Hotel Byblos hopes to restore its reputation as a luxury establishment in the health and family tourism sector, focused on the world of golf.

Ayco’s representatives have communicated that the real estate group plans to completely rebuild the property, which houses one of the largest five-star luxury hotels on the Costa del Sol. They plan to retain the hotel’s characteristic features, as well as incorporate new elements, such as a health and beauty area.

The five-star Hotel Byblos Hotel is an icon of the tourism industry on the Costa del Sol, since many internationally famous personalities have passed through its facilities, including the mythical Rolling Stones and Lady Di, amongst many others.

The establishment, opened in 1986, achieved enormous international fame as an icon of high quality tourism until it was acquired by the real estate group Aifos, which then led it to ruin, until its closure on 31 May 2010. In 2009, the British magnate Lord Sugar, founder of the mythical information technology company Amstrad, acquired the hotel and considered the possibility of reopening it in 2013, but that did not end up happening.

Original story: Real Estate Press

Translation: Carmel Drake