Cerberus Looks to Expand in Spain

3 October 2019 – Cerberus is looking to increase its presence in the Spanish residential real estate market. The fund, which already owns Inmoglaciar, is in talks with investment banks to potentially acquire a larger developer to further enhance its activities in the Iberian peninsula.

Most recently, the US fund bid on Solvia Desarrollos Inmobiliarios’s developer. However, though the fund was a finalist in the bidding process, it lost out to Oaktree, which paid €880-million for the firm, including the company’s structure and landholdings.

Other international funds have been quicker to raise their games in Spain.  Lone Star acquired Neinor and eventually took it public. Castlelake created Aedas with a land bank acquired during the crisis and also took it public. Värde took over Aelca, Parquesol and Vía Célere.

Cerberus is aiming to build 3,000 homes a year, based on its ownership of Immoglaciar and other potential acquisitions. The latest possibility is Inmobiliaria Espacio, which the Villar Mir Group put up for sale two weeks ago.

Original Story: Cinco Días – Alfonso Simón Ruiz / Pablo Martín Simón

Adaptation/Translation: Richard D. K. Turner

Villar Mir Group Puts Inmobiliaria Espacio Up For Sale

18 September 2019 – El Confidencial

According to financial sources, the Villar Mir Group has put its land and property developer subsidiary Inmobiliaria Espacio up for sale. The objective is to raise funds to repay the group’s creditor, the Monaco-based fund Tyrus Capital, and it follows the divestment of two other non-real estate entities, Fertiberia and Ferratlántica, in August.

Savills Aguirre Newman has been engaged to coordinate the sale after valuing the entity’s land and plots at €256.88 million as at 31 December 2017. The assets may be sold as a set or piecemeal. Moreover, the company has tax credits worth between €100 million and €200 million, which is where the real value of Inmobiliaria Espacio lies.

According to the latest available data, the company reported an EBITDA of €1.61 million in 2017 and sales of €46.77 million, up by 23.2% YoY. Moreover, it has an excellent and sizeable portfolio of land for development in good locations, for which planning permission has been granted, and therefore an improvement in sales is forecast over the next few years.

Last year, Tyrus Capital lent the Villar Mir Group €360 million to refinance the debt that the traditional banks did not want to extend. The conditions of that loan are onerous – it has a two-year term (of which one year has already passed) and it carries an interest rate of between 10% and 12%. As such, the group wants to sell off its assets in an orderly fashion to repay and reduce its financing, and so time is of the essence.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Agustín Marco)

Translated by: Aura Ree

Villar Mir Sells Land and Development Rights to Two Apartment Blocks in Málaga to Aquila Capital

17 September 2019 Inmobiliaria Espacio, a subsidiary of the Villar Mir Group, has reached an agreement with the German fund Aquila Capital to sell the land and projects for two 450-flat apartment buildings, each more than 120 meters high, part of the Martiricos project in central Malaga.

The Espacio Medina company, 70% owned by Villar Mir and 30% owned by Afinipo, of Unicaja, initially led the Martiricos development.

In addition to the two apartment buildings, the development includes an office building, a subsidised (VPO) 224-flat housing block and 50,000-m2 of green areas. The project’s estimated investment is expected to reach 240 million euros.

The agreement includes the land where the two towers will be built and the associated project. Villar Mir will remain responsible for the urbanisation works. The two firms declined to reveal the amount of the sale.

Original Story: Expansión – Rocío Ruiz

Adaptation/Translation: Richard D. K. Turner

Inmobiliaria Espacio Negotiating to Sell Two Planned Apartment Buildings in Malaga

2 September 2019

Inmobiliaria Espacio, a subsidiary of Grupo Villar Mir, is negotiating to sell two projects for as yet unbuilt residential buildings in Martiricos, an urban development in Malaga. One building would have flats for direct sale, while the other would be used as rental housing.

The 460 new flats will be the target of a total investment of around 240 million euros.

Original Story: Idealista

Adaptation/Translation: Richard D. K. Turner

Project Caleido will Revolutionise the Commercial Offer on Paseo de la Castellana

9 May 2019 – Expansión

From the end of 2020 onwards, Project Caleido, which is being promoted by the property developer Inmobiliaria Espacio and the Philippine company Megaworld Corporation, is going to launch 14,000 m2 of commercial space at the northern end of Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid, whereby providing a much-needed leisure area for workers in the Cuatro Torres business district.

The commercial space will seek to imitate a typical high street with between 70 and 80 premises distributed over two floors. The premises will house restaurants (35%), services (11%) and retail, technology, accessories and cosmetics brands.

Caleido’s offering will also include a boutique cinema, a supermarket, a gym, an exhibition and events centre and an eSports space. The developers have already marketed 30% of the space and expect to fill another 20%  of the premises before the summer.

According to a study performed by GfK, Caleido will receive more than 3 million visitors per year and will serve not only the employees that already work in the area, but also the more than 6,000 students who will be studying at IE’s new high-rise campus in the fifth tower as well as employees and patients of the Quirónsalud Group’s new advanced medicine centre.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Villar Mir Seeks Partners to Develop Inmobiliaria Espacio’s Land Portfolio

23 April 2019 – Idealista

The Villar Mir Group is looking for partners to inject capital into the development of the land owned by its subsidiary Inmobiliaria Espacio. The firm is going to put a portfolio of assets worth between €250 million and €300 million on the market. Its aim is to continue as the minority shareholder of the developments or to carry out the development of each promotion.

The plots of land are located all over Spain, including in Madrid (Valdebebas, Pozuelo de Alarcón and Alcorcón), Murcia, La Línea de la Concepción and Algeciras (Cádiz), Marbella (Málaga), San Juan (Alicante), Almería, Mallorca and Valencia. At the end of 2017, the plots were worth €256.9 million.

Original story: Idealista 

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

The Bidding Opens for the Largest Plot of Tertiary Land in Madrid

20 March 2019 – Expansión

Savills Aguirre Newman is marketing more than 180,000 m2 of land for the development of retail, hotel and office properties in the Valdebebas area of Madrid. It is the largest undeveloped tertiary use plot in the capital and the surface area for sale has been divided into three zones, all of which are being managed by the Valdebebas Compensation Board. The owners of the land include Monthisa, Bisbel, Vivienda Económica, Celteo, Coindeco and Inmobiliaria Espacio.

The plan is for the sale of the land to be completed by the beginning of the summer, which means that a large number of investors will be able to participate. Retail, hotel and office property developers have already expressed interest in the site, although no firm offers have been received yet.

The development of this new area was unblocked in February, after five years on the backburner, when the Town Hall of Madrid dismissed all of the appeals against the approval of the economic reparcelation project of the Valdebebas land.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

The Villar Mir Family Commissions the Sale of Inmobiliaria Espacio & Fertiberia

12 March 2019 – El Confidencial

The Villar Mir group has decided to clean up its asset portfolio in order to pay off some of its debt and, to this end, has put two companies up for sale: ‘Promociones y Propiedades Inmobiliarias Espacio’ (Priesa), which owns a variety of land and homes, and Fertiberia, the multi-national fertiliser firm.

These two operations form part of the group’s wider reorganisation process, which is being led by the CEO, Javier López Madrid. They will join the partial divestment of Ferroglobe and the possible IPO of OHL, both of which have already sparked great interest in the sector.

The Villar Mir family has entrusted the sale of Inmobiliaria Espacio to Savills Aguirre Newman, which will begin by performing a valuation of the assets. Project Caleido, involving the construction of a 180-metre tall tower, on Paseo de la Castellana, will be excluded from the deal.

Priesa has returned to profits in the last two years, following several years of losses, which forced the majority shareholder to provide a €175 million participation loan as part of a rescue plan. The company’s main appeal lies in its sizeable, high-quality portfolio of land for development, in good locations, which was valued by RICS to be worth €257 million at the end of 2017.

Meanwhile, sources report that Villar Mir has also engaged Lazards to find a buyer for Fertiberia, for which it could receive around €250 million.

Sources close to the operations point out that it is unlikely that all of the deals in the pipeline will go ahead. What is clear is that Villar Mir will have to divest some assets to repay as soon as possible the €365 million that Tyrus lent the group in November last year.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Agustín Marco)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Espacio Caleido to Build up to 80 Commercial Premises in Madrid’s Fifth Tower Complex

4 June 2018 – Eje Prime

More retail space in Madrid. Espacio Caleido, controlled by the company Inmobiliaria Espacio, is going to build between seventy and eighty retail premises in the fifth tower complex in Madrid. Together, all of the establishments will have a combined commercial area of more than 13,000 m2.

The commercial premises will be destined to retail, restaurant and service operators, which will be located in a zone divided into several areas (some next to the tower) and which will include gardens and rest spaces next to the shops and restaurants.

One of the areas that will be most representative will be formed “by ten cubes that will be located parallel to Paseo de la Castellana and which may be customised by each operator”, said Espacio Caleido. To market the premises available in the complex, Espacio Caleido has already opened an office to show the plans to companies interested in moving there.

The Torre Caleido project, which is being built alongside the four tallest skyscrapers in Madrid, will involve an investment of €300 million. It will span 70,000 m2 in total, stand 165 m tall and contain 36 storeys.

The fifth tower is going to be the shortest of the five skyscrapers and its neighbour, Torre de Cristal, will continue to be the tallest in Madrid, and in Spain, at 249 m tall.

The new complex, which is being built in the Cuatro Torres Business District, will have Instituto de Empresa (IE) as its main tenant, which will create its university campus IE University there, and the Quirón Salud Group, which is going to install an advanced medicine centre in an annexed building that will be four-storeys tall and 20 m high.

The project is being promoted by the company Espacio Caleido, owned by Inmobiliaria Espacio, of the Villar Mir Group, the main shareholder of OHL, with a 51% stake, and by the Philippine company Megaworld Corporation with the remaining 49%.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

FS Capital Creates JV with Inmobiliaria Espacio to Build 1,000 Homes

10 April 2018 – Press Release

The new Joint Venture plans to launch in the main cities of the Iberian peninsula to promote its primary residence homes. 

The real estate project has been created with four plots of buildable land, on which construction work will begin in the next few months. 

Inmobiliaria Espacio, a company that has been dedicated to property development for more than 45 years, has today announced the signing of a joint venture agreement with FS Capital, which, through funds that it advises, is planning to build more than 1,000 homes in Spain and Portugal over the next few years.

The Joint Venture is going to be carried out through Espacio Living Homes, the vehicle from which the future residential projects will be constructed. Following the completion of the operation, the funds advised by FS Capital hold 75% of the shares in the aforementioned company, and the remaining 25% stays in the hands of Espacio.

FS Capital, the commercial brand of Principal Advisor EAFI, is an investment advisory company regulated by the CNMV, which specialises in real estate and loan opportunities, amongst others, in Spain and Portugal. FS Capital advises institutional investors with assets worth approximately €300 million and has a team of highly-qualified professionals with extensive investment experience across a wide range of assets, geographies and capital structures.

Inmobiliaria Espacio, with its proven experience in the integral management of real estate assets and provision of advice in processes to plan, manage and build urban developments, as well as to coordinate and manage construction processes; will form, together with FS Capital, the perfect tandem, which will invest up to €400 million in existing land and assets for primary residences, anywhere on the Iberian Peninsula, with no geographical restrictions.

The JV has been created with four buildable plots of land in Madrid, Valladolid and Levante, on which construction work will begin in the next few months.

The process was closed after several candidates were invited to a restricted access process where most of the investors expressed interest in becoming Espacio’s strategic partner for property development. The consultancy firm Aiga Advisory has advised the process since the project began and has made the union of these two companies possible, in collaboration with PwC on the legal side, to cover the entire scope of the operation, which has been closed in record time.

With this new investment, both FS Capital and Inmobiliaria Espacio, consolidate their commitment to the recovery of the sector and to the Iberian peninsula, which they consider is one of the markets with the most potential and the best expectations in terms of development and quality of life for investing in over the next few years.

Original story: Press Release

Translation: Carmel Drake