Avintia & Gesurbe Boost Locare: €55M & 3 New Projects in Madrid

13 December 2018 – Eje Prime

Locare is searching for its place in the Spanish rental market. The real estate investment manager, in which Grupo Avintia and Gesurbe hold stakes, has launched the development of its first 405 homes in different locations across the Community of Madrid. The combined investment for the projects will exceed €55 million, according to comments made by Andrés Horcajada, founder and CEO of Locare, speaking to Eje Prime.

Specifically, the company is building 171 homes in Torrelodones (which will be finished during the second quarter of 2019), 110 in Villalba and 124 in Móstoles. The last two developments will enter into operation during 2020, following an average construction period of between 12 and 18 months. Together, the plots span a constructed surface area of 37,000 m2.

“We want to end 2019 with 1,100 homes under development, not only in the Community of Madrid, but also in other parts of the country”, explained the executive. Pamplona, Ibiza and Zaragoza are the cities that Locare currently has it its sights for its next projects, with the aim of investing €65 million.

The company, created in 2016, undertakes all of the phases of the real estate cycle, from raising capital to operating assets. Locare also takes care of searching for plots for social housing units, a requirement shared by all of the plots that the manager acquires.

“We do not buy properties that are already constructed, given that for us build to rent is fundamental”, explained Horcajada. The director added that this business model allows “investors to take advantage of the first phases of the real estate cycle and for the resulting product to be designed specifically for the rental market”.

Tectum is Locare’s ally 

Locare has teamed up with the capital manager Tectum Real Estate to attract investors to finance its projects. “Tectum allows us to group together Spanish family offices primarily and it is the company through which we relate directly with them and we deal with their demands”, explained the CEO of the company.

Besides Tectum, the company led by Horcajada also collaborates with the construction firm Avintia as an industrial partner, although the director explains that they do not have an exclusive contract with them when it comes to carrying out construction projects.

On the other hand, Locare has launched new technology into the world with another strategic collaborator, the proptech Mitula. “Through this platform, we are undertaking data analysis, both of the demand as well as of the supply of each one of the locations in which we are launching”, explained the executive.

In terms of the company’s long-term plans, Horcajada confirmed that the debut on the stock market “is not a plan that features amongst the desires of investors”. Similarly, the director explains that Locare will focus especially on the Spanish residential rental market, for which it predicts a promising future. “Housing is going to be increasingly configured for use (rental) and not for ownership, like in other European companies”, concludes the executive.

Locare is a real estate investment manager dedicated to residential rental. Although both Grupo Avintia and Gesurbe have been linked to this market niche for more than eight years, Locare was created as an independent platform in 2016.

Original story: Eje Prime (by Berta Seijo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Savills: Logistics Investment in Spain to Grow by 40% in 2018

20 November 2018 – Expansión

Real estate investment in the logistics market is on the verge of breaking a new record. According to data from the consultancy firm Savills Aguirre Newman, investment in the segment is going to exceed €1.2 billion in 2018, which will represent growth of 40% compared to the €854 million registered last year.

During the first nine months of this year alone, investment exceeded €875 million, without taking into account any corporate operations, which represents a 3% increase with respect to the total volume recorded during the whole of 2017.

“The intense level of activity at the national level in the market for land, by both funds and by end users, is going to continue until the end of the year”, explained sources at Savills Aguirre Newman.

In this sense, although the most sought-after product in the investment market is still the highest-quality and best-positioned warehouses, investors are also analysing spaces with the potential to be transformed and the capacity to offer higher returns.

Product shortage

Sources at the consultancy firm explain that, in light of the shortage of products in Madrid and Barcelona, the secondary markets have become a focus of attention for investors. Similarly, the scarcity in terms of finished products has reactivated interest in the market for land.

In terms of the volume of space leased, 1,127,000 m2 was snapped up in the markets in Madrid and Barcelona to September, which represents an increase of 22% with respect to the same period in 2017.

Original story: Expansión (by R.A.)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Proa Capital Sells Hospital de Llevant to Caser

15 November 2018 – Expansión

Proa Capital is stepping on the sales accelerator in 2018. The private equity manager has completed its fourth divestment of the year: Hospital de Llevant. According to financial sources, the fund – which exerted control over the asset with 70% of the share capital – and the other minority shareholders have sold the medical centre to Caser. The insurance group is strengthening its network of own hospitals through this acquisition.

Market calculations indicate that the transaction valued the company at around €30 million, which represents around 10 times its forecast EBITDA for this year of c. €3 million. The centre’s revenues amount to around €20 million.

Proa became the owner of the centre located in Mallorca in 2013. At that time, Hospital de Llevant targeted the care market for the elderly, focusing particularly on residents from overseas. Since then, Proa – in partnership with the management team, some of whom are also shareholders – has promoted the hospital aspect of the centre. The fund announced that it had completed its mission a few months ago and that it, therefore, considered that it was time to exit.

Now, in an industrial investor, it has found the appropriate replacement owner. For Caser, the purchase fits with the group’s objectives, which a decade ago committed to building a network of own centres for its hospital division as part of its diversification strategy.

Hospital de Llevant will thereby be incorporated into a group that already comprises five other centres, located on the Canary Islands and in Extremadura, and which operate under the brand Hospitales Parque, according to information from Caser. The insurance company also has a section specialising in geriatrics, Caser Residencial, through which it operates 16 nursing homes for the elderly.

Accounting to the sources, the intention is for the current directors of the hospital in Mallorca to continue to lead the centre, which currently employs a workforce of 170 and offers 140 beds, split into equal parts between hospital care and care for the elderly. It also has three operating theatres and an intensive care unit.

Original story: Expansión (by M. Ponce de León)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Nyesa Raises Capital with New Investors & an Office Portfolio in Cádiz worth €22M

30 October 2018 – Eje Prime

Nyesa is continuing with its plan to capture investors and increase its share capital and portfolio. The Spanish real estate company has agreed to a capital increase, which will allow the company Olaf y Rubí to become one of its shareholders. Following the operation, Nyesa’s new shareholder will introduce into the company’s portfolio 95 offices in Las Torres De Hércules, in Cádiz, worth €22 million, according to a statement filed by the company with Spain’s National Securities and Markets Commission (CNMV).

The investment, which will see Olaf y Rubí acquire a 21% stake in the real estate company, is conditional upon Nyesa’s largest shareholders (the US group Gaber, the Russian investors Eldarov, Ivanov, Samodurov and the company Fanumceo) considering that the assets in question will pass an urban planning, legal, tax and financial review.

Olaf y Rubí’s portfolio is associated with a mortgage amounting to almost €4.8 million. The new shareholder of the real estate company will subscribe to a line of credit to cover all of the costs relating to the mortgage (…).

Las Torres de Hércules, located in the Bay of Algeciras, were designed by the prestigious Spanish architect Rafael de la Hoz. Their tenants include companies such as the Danish logistics giant Maersk, which houses its headquarters for Southern Europe in the complex.

Standing 126 m above the city, the building was the tallest in Andalucía for several years, until the completion of Torre Sevilla, owned by CaixaBank. The property, which comprises two towers, spans a surface area of almost 20,000 m2 and was acquired by the Socimi Brickstock in September.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Juan Velayos: “Spain Needs to Create a Large Rental Player”

22 October 2018 – Eje Prime

Neinor Homes is going to reach “cruising speed” in 2019. The listed property developer is working to close the year with the delivery of almost 1,000 homes, half the number planned for next year. In the growth plan for the real estate company for the next few years, its CEO, Juan Velayos, does not rule out selling entire developments to a large rental home manager, a type of player that “Spain needs to create”, assured the director at a breakfast meeting held yesterday in Barcelona.

Velayos recognises that, for the time being, there are not any real estate companies specialising in rental “with such a large volume that would allow them to offer us an attractive margin, but we would be delighted to negotiate with any of them”.

The possibility of expanding its portfolio of clients through agreements with large asset managers could prove attractive for one of the property developers with the largest land bank in Spain and which forecasts starting to hand over 4,000 homes per year from 2020 onwards.

In total, the listed company has buildable land on which to construct 13,500 homes spread over 180 developments all over the country. The external valuation of this portfolio amounts to €1.813 billion, according to sources at Neinor.

“The company has already started to hand over homes and generate a positive cash flow and result”, highlights Velayos. The property developer currently has cranes at sixty developments, which will introduce 5,000 homes onto the market. Following the latest purchases of land in Bilbao, Sevilla and Madrid, “we have the land bank covered until 2021”, confirms the director.

In financial terms, Neinor recorded revenues of €78.9 million during the six months to June. That figure reflects a lot of activity in the marketing area. As at 30 September, the property developer had pre-sold 3,000 of the 7,000 homes that it had on the market, resulting in revenues of more than €1 billion for the company controlled by the Israeli fund Adar Capital.

“We will reach cruising speed in 2019”.  

Velayos trusts that the increase in productivity this year will allow Neinor to reach “cruising speed in 2019”. Next year, the listed company will have more than 120 developments underway, with a percentage of pre-sales that already exceeds 75%.

On this roadmap to lead the Spanish residential segment, Neinor trusts “wholeheartedly” in Cataluña, confirmed Velayos. It represents the firm’s current “star” location, as proven by the fact that 50% of the 5,000 homes that the property developer currently has under construction in Spain are located in this region and, primarily, in the metropolitan area of Barcelona.

“We are working on quite a few operations in the first ring”, said the director. In terms of the profile of the property developer’s buyers in Cataluña, young couples stand out, accounting for 39% of its customers, ahead of families with children (33%). In this sense, it is worth noting that 15% of its clients are investors, a percentage that exceeds Neinor’s average at the national level (11%).

Regarding the moratorium that Ada Colau is planning to launch in Barcelona, and which will oblige 30% of all new developments to be reserved for social housing, Velayos is clear: “That measure will not affect us because we won’t buy land in Barcelona” (…).

Original story: Eje Prime (by Jabier Izquierdo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Castilla & León Reclassifies 28,315 hectares of Buildable Land Back to Rural Use

6 October 2018 – El Confidencial

Torquemada in Palencia has 989 inhabitants and sufficient buildable land on which to construct 162,000 homes. Coca in Segovia has 1,863 inhabitants and sufficient buildable land on which to construct 114,000 homes. Valladolid capital has 299,715 inhabitants and sufficient land on which to construct 217,293 new homes. They are just three simple examples of the urban planning absurdity seen in recent decades that is still present in almost every municipality in Spain.

Since the 1980s, and especially since the beginning of this century, town halls, in particular those in rural areas, have reclassified thousands of hectares of rural land to buildable land, on mass, in the hope that, during the boom times there would be a bureaucracy saving for the property developers, which would encourage them to invest, in both homes and industry. But the bubble burst (…) and thousands of buildable hectares were left over, converted today in a kind of weird joke.

Now, the Junta de Castilla y León wants to recover all of that land to return it to what it always was, agricultural and forestry land without any pretensions of being home to long rows of terraced houses or enormous industrial estates. The regional government has established three phases for the change of its land uses on mass.

It undertook the first phase in 2016, converting 10,000 hectares, and on 18 October this year, it will undertake the second phase, affecting 28,315 hectares, equivalent to half of the island of Ibiza or more than half of La Rioja. In total, 87 municipalities including several provincial capitals with capacity for one million potential homes that will now never see the light. The final mass change is planned for 2022. Goodbye then to the reckless optimism of the past; hello to a different future, one characterised by depopulation, which threatens to erase thousands of towns from the map (…).

“This is not Marbella, it was never realistic to think that large companies or property developers were going to come here to build homes. We have an industrial estate with five companies and we have lost 100 inhabitants in the last five years. A town cannot work miracles”, explains Jorge Domingo González, mayor of Torquemada, the rural municipality most affected by this second wave, which will modify 208 areas in Castilla y León (only 45 of them are industrial plots of land) on the basis of the urban planning law approved in 2014. “All of that land was reclassified not to build homes but to facilitate investment (…)”, explains the mayor of Torquemada.

Even so, many mayors did take advantage of the change to approve large residential developments, always under the suspicion, and sometimes rightly so, that they were going to be built with the sole objective of speculation and receiving an illegal bonus. That is where hundreds of ghost urbanisations in the middle of nowhere stemmed from; many are half-built, some even lack roads, but all have now been converted into a burden for municipalities, which do not have enough money to demolish them (…).

The town halls will not see any great benefits from this measure, but the owners of the land will do, since they will save a decent amount by no longer having to pay IBI (property tax) on urban land but having to do so on rural land, which is much cheaper. “In this way, we avoid uncertainties that have no sense in being maintained”, said Marinero…..

There is no record of any owner submitting claims against this change of use, although they have had four years to do so. That in itself is a clear sign that times have changed and that no one in the towns expects to win the lottery. If anything, they now just dream of not disappearing, to avoid being dragged away by the rural exodus.

Original story: El Confidencial (by David Brunat)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Investors Unleash a Buying Frenzy on Madrid & Barcelona’s High Streets

28 August 2018 – Cinco Días

E-commerce is having an unexpected effect in that it is boosting the main high streets of Madrid and Barcelona. A number of operators are opening flagship stores to compete with online sales, whilst at the same time, there is a great deal of interest from investors wanting to acquire these types of properties since they represent assets with high returns.

During the first six months of the year, the main high streets of Madrid and Barcelona sparked a buying frenzy amongst real estate investors. They spent €700 million on the purchase of stores during H1 – that figure was 44% higher than they spent during the whole of 2017, according to the High Street report published by the consultancy firm Savills Aguirre Newman.

In an environment of low returns on other investment alternatives, given the context of low interest rates and enormous liquidity in the market, significant capital flows are being channelled towards property. Within the sector, the high street segment (stores on the most commercial streets) of Madrid and Barcelona are attracting investors.

The yield or return in the best commercial neighbourhoods of Madrid and Barcelona amounts to 3.25%, and in secondary areas, that figure rises to between 4.5% and 4.75% (the better the area, the higher the cost of operations and so the lower the returns). In large towns, the yield on prime stores reaches 4%.

Institutional investors (large real estate and pension funds) have been the most active players, accounting for 76% of all operations, according to Savills Aguirre Newman, with the remaining 24% involving insurance companies, private firms, family offices and Socimis (…).

“Institutional investors continue to focus on the best commercial thoroughfares of the large cities, where the purchase tickets typically exceed €20 million”, says the study. Meanwhile, private investors are more active in opportunities in the cities in which they reside, where they are local experts.

Madrid has accounted for a large number of the operations seen in recent months, with the acquisition by the fund Hines of Preciados 13 (..) and Redevco’s purchase of the Mercado de San Miguel. Meanwhile, AEW bought the Mercado de Fuencarral; Generali acquired Preciados 9; Thor Equities snapped up Gran Vía 30, and M&G Real Estate purchased 68 on the same street. Nevertheless, a lot of the investment this year has been due to one transaction involving a portfolio of Inditex stores, which were acquired by the German fund Deka for €400 million.

For investors, another attractive feature of the Spanish market is the improvement in the rents that tenants are paying, which have clearly risen in recent years since the crisis. Prices on Calle Preciados, for example, have risen from €270/sqm/month two years ago to €277/sqm/month in 2018. Gran Vía has also seen a €10/sqm/month increase to €240/sqm/month, according to data from the consultancy firm.

In Barcelona, prices on the most expensive street in Spain, Portal de L’Angel, have grown by 5.5% during the same period to €285/sqm/month. Nevertheless, prices on Paseo de Gracia are rising the fastest, by 15%, to reach €260/sqm/month (…).

One of the major changes that is being seen is the concentration and opening of large flagship stores in the centre of the two cities through which the operators are seeking to counter the strength of online shopping, by offering what they call a shopping experience (…).

In this vein, as Cinco Días revealed last week, the Chinese technology firm Huawei is going to open a flagship store on Gran Vía 48 in Madrid, in the former C&A store. On the other hand, the Sfera brand, owned by El Corte Inglés, is leaving Gran Vía 30, given that it has recently reorganised its business in the centre of the city to focus on its larger and recently renovated megastore on Calle Preciados.

Original story: Cinco Días (by Alfonso Simón Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Almagro Capital, the Socimi Specialising in Homes for the Elderly, Prepares its MAB Debut

27 July 2018 – Idealista

Increasingly, more and more Socimis specialising in alternative assets are wanting to take their portfolios to the stock market. The latest is Almagro Capital, one of the largest Socimis to specialise in residential assets for the elderly. The company has proposed making its leap onto the Alternative Investment Market (MAB) in 2019 and raising €50 million to grow through purchases.

Almagro’s business model focuses on acquiring homes for the elderly whereby the vendors themselves become the tenants of their homes. These investments respond to an increasingly widespread problem in Spain that directly affects the elderly: 90% of people aged over 65 years live in a home that they own and 30% admit to struggling to make ends meet.

Almagro Capital was founded last year by former directors of Lehman Brothers and Merril Lynch. It will be the first Socimi from Orfila to focus its activity in Madrid. The company started with prime flats in the capital since they are assets with less volatility and which can achieve returns for investors of 10% per annum. Chamberí, Chamartín and Goya are the areas where the Socimi is centred.

The real estate vehicle has started the search for new assets, located in the metropolitan areas of the main Spanish cities, such as Madrid, Valencia, Málaga, Salamanca, Granada, Bilbao and Sevilla, amongst others, although it points out that its focus is placed on the Community of Madrid, and more specifically, on the region inside the M-30.

Almagro Capital is planning to make its debut on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB) in the summer of 2019. Until then, the company will continue to focus on the search for new opportunities in the market and is holding advanced negotiations to buy new assets in Madrid worth between €300,000 and €3 million.

Original story: Idealista

Translation: Carmel Drake

Madrid’s Town Hall to Approve the Mahou-Calderón Project

18 July 2018 – Eje Prime

The Mahou-Calderón project is pushing ahead. Tomorrow (Thursday), the Town Hall of Madrid is going to approve the urban development plan for the land, one of the most sought-after plots in the Spanish capital. The roadmap for the site, which is still home to the Vicente Calderón stadium, the historical home of Atlético de Madrid, means that the construction work will begin after the summer and will be scheduled for completion within three years.

After the summer, Atlético de Madrid and Mahou, the owners of the batch of land, hope that the period of public consultation will be completed so that they can start to demolish the stadium, according to El Confidencial.

The building work will be divided into three phases, starting with the demolition of the Calderón. Next, and after modifying the traffic flow that passes under the pitch, the roads between Paseo de los Pontones, Paseo Imperial and Paseo de los Melancólicos are going to be urbanised.

The first phase of the project is also going to be the most expensive, with an investment of €22.7 million, half of the total budget established (€42.2 million) for this ambitious urban development plan. The Government of Madrid is going to contribute another €60 million to cover over the road.

The finalists: Solvia, Ibosa and Princeton 

Waiting to see what happens tomorrow in the Town Hall are Solvia, Ibosa and Princeton, the three finalist investors looking to buy the plots, which will expand Madrid’s residential stock by another 33,339 m2 of buildable land, located on a plot with a buildable surface area of 132,344 m2.

The objective of Atlético de Madrid with this project is to raise up to €200 million from the sale operation. The club is planning to use that extraordinary capital to repay Carlos Slim the €160 million loan that he granted the sporting entity to complete the building work on its current stadium, the Wanda Metropolitano.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Sareb Sets Itself an Online Sales Challenge: €1.8bn in NPLs

10 July 2018 – El Economista

Sareb has launched a new wave of non-performing loans for sale on its online marketing channel, aimed at investors and professionals, to boost the divestment of €1.8 billion, equivalent to 7.2% of its portfolio of financial assets, according to sources at the company speaking to Europa Press.

Since July 2017, Sareb has had a dedicated loan sales channel for investors and professionals, a pioneering initiative in the European market, which allows it to promote divestment and increase the visibility of these kinds of assets.

The aim of the so-called bad bank is to enhance the transparency of the sales processes of these types of assets, which are now in their fourth wave. At the end of 2017, it had managed to sell loans with a nominal value of €186 million, €35 million through its website and €151 million through its servicers, which also have specific platforms to market these portfolios.

The guarantees associated with these loans mainly constitute mortgages over properties of different kinds: finished residential homes, work in progress buildings and land.

With this channel, Sareb is continuing to push ahead with its divestment process and its commitment to a more dynamic and transparent loan market, according to Expansion.

The channel is aimed at investors and professionals who fulfil a series of minimum eligibility requirements. Sareb’s aim is to expand the number and profile of investors who can participate in its loan sale processes, whereby facilitating divestment in the segment. In this way, the players that may operate on the channel include international and domestic professionals, as well as local operators interested in the loans.

Sareb has a loan volume amounting to more than €25 billion proceeding from almost 14,575 debtors. All of them have a combined debt of €70.4 billion, including associated interest and expenses. In order to recover those amounts, the entity carries out an active management process that allows it to ensure the payment of interest on the loans and, where possible, their repayment or cancellation.

When it was constituted, Sareb received around 200,000 assets worth €50.8 billion, of which 80% were loans and property developer credits and 20% were properties.

After five years of life, Sareb has reduced its portfolio by more than €13.6 billion. Currently, its portfolio of assets comprises 67.3% in loans and 32.6% in properties.

Sareb issued debt backed by the Spanish State to pay the rescued entities for the assets that they transferred to the company. The company is complying with the repayment of that debt, and to date has repaid more than €12.9 billion.

Original story: El Economista 

Translation: Carmel Drake