Tag: Inmobiliario Espacio

CaixaBank & Allianz Grant a €135M Loan to Finance Caleido

20 November 2018 – Expansión

CaixaBank and Allianz have granted a €135 million loan to finance the construction and operational launch of Caleido, a project led by Inmobiliario Espacio, the property developer of the Villar Mir Group, and MegaWorld Corporation, the business conglomerate owned by the Philippine multi-millionaire Andrew Tan.

Caleido, which will constitute the so-called Fifth Tower in Madrid, is going to comprise a vertical 35-storey building, which will contain the facilities of Instituto de Empresa, and a second horizontal building at the base comprising four above ground floors and standing 17 metres tall in which Quirón Salud is going to manage an advanced medical centre. Moreover, Caleido is going to include an extensive commercial and services area, as well as lots of green space for Madrid and its citizens.

The loan, which has a 10-year term, will finance the construction period until the hand over of the property, in the final quarter of 2020, as well as seven years of operation.

The property developers have explained that the aforementioned agreement will cover the financing needs of Caleido, with a total estimated investment of approximately €300 million.

“This operation strengthens the confidence that financial institutions have in the project and the great expectations that are being generated around its construction. In this way, the technical solvency of the project is clear, as is its future management and operation”, said the property developers.

Caleido – designed by the architecture studios Fenwick & Iribarren and Serrano Suñer Arquitectos – will be located in the epicentre of the new financial district of Madrid and will serve to eliminate a scar from the north of the Spanish capital, connecting Paseo de la Castellana and Anida de Monforte de Lemos, as well as revitalising the current business complex.

The project is being built on some plots owned by the Town Hall of Madrid, granted to Espacio Caleido through a concession arrangement for the construction and operation of the project for the next 75 years. In exchange, Espacio Caleido will pay an annual fee of €4 million. The launch of Project Caleido will generate around 2,400 jobs during the construction period and another 3,992 jobs once it is operational.

Original story: Expansión (by R.A.)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Villar Mir Teams Up With ACR To Build Homes Through Its RE Firm Espacio

14 September 2017 – Expansión

Inmobiliaria Espacio, the holding subsidiary of Villar Mir, and the ACR Group have announced the joint purchase of a plot of land measuring 15,000 m2 (buildable surface area), where they plan to construct 160 homes.

The operation, whose consideration has not been revealed, forms part of a joint venture that the two companies have closed to construct homes in different parts of Spain.

In fact, the plot of land in Valladolid is the second purchase made by this joint company, which acquired another plot of land a few months ago in Madrid, specifically in Avenida Daroca, for the development of 32 homes.

“This new acquisition demonstrates the success of the collaboration between both companies and reinforces our idea of continuing to promote homes in those areas where we observe increasingly more demand and where both companies have an outstanding track record”, explains David Botín, Director of Real Estate Development at the ACR Group.

Sources at the company have said that they will continue to look for investment opportunities together with Villar Mir’s subsidiary. Moreover, ACR also has another alliance, with Allegra, the real estate arm of the Losantos family.

At the beginning of the year, Espacio announced its return to residential development, after several years away following the burst of the bubble. At the time, it announced that it planned to construct 241 homes along the coast (specifically, in Málaga, Alicante and Mallorca), whilst it looked for opportunities to buy land in Madrid. Espacio owns approximately 325,000 m2 of land in the urban development of Valdebebas, in the north of the capital.

Moreover, the real estate division of Villar Mir is the co-owner of Torre Caleido, the fifth skyscraper that is being constructed in the ‘Business Area de la Castellana’ complex in Madrid. It also owns a stake in the luxury Canalejas complex, which will soon be home to the first Four Seasons hotel in Spain.

According to the latest results corresponding to the year 2015, Villar Mir’s subsidiary recorded turnover of €114 million in 2015, up by 52% compared to the previous year.

Original story: Expansión (by Rocío Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Villar Mir Seeks Tenant For 5th Tower After Mount Sinai Withdraws

12 August 2015 – El Confidencial

The future of Inmobiliario Espacio’s new skyscraper is up in the air. Just four months after Juan Miguel Villar Mir’s company was awarded the concession to use the land next to the Cuatro Torres business district, it has been left without a tenant for the site and is assessing alternative solutions with various candidates.

The future of the fifth tower, which Madrid’s Town Council awarded to Inmobiliario Espacio in April as Ana Botella’s term in office drew to a close, is up in the air. And not just because of the change in local government and political ideology that took place following Manuela Carmena’s arrival at the Palacio de Cibeles in May, but also, and above all, for purely commercial reasons.

The proposal that enabled the company, controlled by Juan Miguel Villar Mir, to win the contest centred around the new skyscraper housing a private medical centre, as well as recreational and retail space – an arrangement that the businessman had agreed with the prestigious Mount Sinai group.

In fact, according to sources close to the deal, the medical group had signed a letter of intent with the Spanish company, but had not entered into a binding contract. As such, the prestigious US centre has been able to back out of the deal and leave Inmobiliario Espacio without a tenant and therefore, without the key required to access the bank financing that is so critical to making this project work. This situation has forced Villar Mir to start looking for alternatives.

Several sources have confirmed that various consultancy firms are working on the search for an alternative to the Mount Sinai project. The options range from reaching an agreement with another medical group – the Mayo Clinic, IDC Salud, HM Hospitales and Vithas have all been considered – ; to modifying the project to accommodate another kind of tenant, such as a university or business school; and even, to changing the initial idea of building a skyscraper to construct another kind of property instead, which would be cheaper to build. Any such change would require the approval of the Local Council.

“Hurricane Carmena”

According to sources close to the Villar Mir Group, the new Local Council has not yet definitely approved Inmobiliario Espacio’s proposal, which means that the project may still be suspended if the numbers do not add up. This threat has been looming since Ahora Madrid was elected into office (in May), but it would be difficult to justify from an economic perspective, given the (negative) impact its cancelation would have on the public coffers. (…).

According to the terms of the concession, the Town Hall will continue to own the plot of land next to the Cuatro Torres site and the winning bidder (in this case Inmobiliario Espacio) will have the right to use the land for a period of 75 years, in exchange for the payment of an annual fee throughout the concession term, which Ana Botella’s team had set at a minimum of €1.9 million, but for which Villar Mir ended up offering more than double (€4.0 million).

Since Inmobiliario Espacio does not own the land, it will have to finance the entire build cost of the skyscraper, estimated at €100 million out of its own pocket, or find a way of offering the banks some kind of guarantee (other than the land) to convince them to grant a loan…in these kinds of project, banks tend to rely on a guaranteed tenant, but that is something that Villar Mir lacks at the moment and explains the current wave of activity to find a solution.

The problems associated with the fifth tower come at a particularly difficult time for Grupo Villar Mir, as its flagship company OHL is struggling to generate cash, whilst at the same time is facing corruption and financing problems…in recent years, the parent company has embarked on several highly ambitious transactions, including the purchase of a 25% stake in Colonial, a 19% stake in Abertis, Operación Canalejas and the fifth tower. (…).

Original story: El Confidencial (by Ruth Ugalde)

Translation: Carmel Drake