Juan Velayos Leaves Alantra to Create his Own Real Estate Firm

The former CEO of Neinor has left Alantra a year after joining to found his own real estate management and consulting firm, called JV20.

Juan Velayos, who was instrumental in the startup of the property developer Neinor Homes, has decided to leave the consulting firm Alantra to set up his own real estate boutique.

As confirmed by the executive himself, both parties have agreed his exit from Alantra just a year after he was appointed. On Monday, the consulting firm announced the reorganisation of its real estate asset management activity. “As a consequence of this strategic reorganisation, Alantra and Juan Velayos have agreed to end their professional relationship and interrupt the project that he was launching to on investment in nursing homes,” the firm said in a statement.

Banks come to the Rescue of the Real Estate Sector with Loans and One Year Grace Periods

Real estate companies are already negotiating with their financial institutions to defer payments by three months and to secure new lines of ICO financing with one-year grace periods.

“We have just refinanced a €50 million loan with a grace period of 12 months. The banks are being amazingly positive”. Those were the words of one senior executive of a real estate consultancy regarding the role of financial entities in helping the real estate business manage the impact of Covid-19. “It has been a dream response,” said one large owner of commercial properties in Spain and Portugal.

The role of the banks, both Spanish and international, is going to be key to ensuring that the Spanish real estate sector does not repeat the crash experienced between 2008 and 2013. “The banks are going to be part of the solution and not part of the problem, although late payment and over-indebtedness will return”, predicts Juan Velayos, Managing Partner of Alantra.

Former CEO of Neinor Juan Velayos Joins Alantra

24 June 2019Cinco Dias

Alantra has hired Juan Velayos as a managing partner, tasked with building up a new real estate asset management business in Spain and abroad. Velayos will lead the creation of investment vehicles, while raising funds and directing investment, following the example of such major international firms as Blackstone, Brookfield and Cerberus.

Juan Velayos was Neinor Homes’ CEO until two months ago after Lone Star put him in charge of the firm when it acquired the developer from Kutxabank.

Original Story: Cinco Dias – Alfonso Simón Ruiz

Translation/Summary – Richard D. Turner

 

 

Julius Baer Acquires 3% of Metrovacesa and 8.14% of Neinor

17 April 2019 – Voz Pópuli

The Swiss bank Julius Baer has been increasing its stakes in the main Spanish property developers. The company now owns 3% of Metrovacesa through its Sicav Kairos and 8.14% of Neinor Homes, of which 6.55% is held indirectly.

As such, the Swiss bank is the second largest shareholder of the property developer created by Lone Star, behind the Israeli firm Adar Capital, which controls 28.6%.

The share purchase by Julius Baer comes a week after Neinor’s board approved the replacement of Juan Velayos as its CEO, in an environment of maximum uncertainty in terms of the achievability of the objectives set by the Spanish property developer.

Neinor’s share price has fallen by 17% so far this year, and as such, each share is worth around €10, well below its stock market debut price of €16.98.

Nevertheless, the group’s results for 2018 were strong, with revenues of €382 million, up by 70% YoY and an EBITDA of €56 million, which was almost seven times higher than in the previous year. Moreover, the property developer has already pre-sold 80% of the units it plans to deliver in 2019 and 30% of those due in 2020.

Original story: Voz Pópuli (by David Cabrera)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Neinor’s Share Price Drops by 16% As the Market Reacts to its New Strategic Plan

9 April 2019 – La Vanguardia

The share price of Neinor Homes decreased by more than 16.3% after the change in CEO and a new more conservative strategic plan was announced on Monday.

As such, Neinor’s share price has plummeted by more than 30% since the start of the year and is currently trading at around €9 per share.

The company has appointed Borja García-Egotxeaga as its new CEO, following the resignation of Juan Velayos, who will continue as a senior advisor to the property developer.

Original story: La Vanguardia

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Neinor Revises its Profit Forecast for 2019 Down by 50%

9 April 2019 – Expansión

Neinor has a new CEO and is revising down its profit and construction forecasts. Borja García-Egotxeaga (pictured below), Operations Director at the property developer until now, will take over from Juan Velayos, and will oversee a new-look strategic plan.

The revised forecasts involve the firm delivering between 1,200 and 1,700 homes in 2019, compared with the 2,000 units initially planned, and achieving an EBITDA of €70 million, down by 53% compared to the initial projection of €150 million.

Neinor has also cut its forecasts for 2020, with a revised EBITDA of €100 million for next year compared with the initial forecast of €300 million, as well as new home deliveries of between 1,700 and 2,400 units, down from 4,000.

The company underlined its intention to remunerate its shareholders with dividend distributions of €200 million until 2022 and to repurchase up to €100 million in shares to offset the decrease in its share price.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Neinor Withdraws from the Purchase Process of ‘Solvia Desarrollos Inmobiliarios’

28 February 2019 – El Español

Neinor Homes is not going to be one of the candidates that submits an offer to acquire Solvia Desarrollos Inmobiliarios (SDI), the subsidiary of Banco Sabadell. The real estate company has been studying the operation for a while but has concluded, following its initial analysis, that the numbers do not fit with its investment philosophy.

That is according to explanations provided by Neinor’s CEO, Juan Velayos, who acknowledged that he has the sales prospectus on his desk but that at the moment, “it is not a priority” for him. We are talking about a company that has a portfolio of 300 buildable plots and which the bank led by Jaime Guardiola put up for sale in January.

Velayos himself acknowledges that he “loves the portfolio”, but he’s not so convinced by the numbers being seen in the market”. (…). “I’m afraid that it is not going to be for us from the perspective of a disciplined investor”, he said. The first valuations of SDI’s land are in the region of €1.3 billion, given that the portfolio also includes 130 real estate developments in different areas with 5,000 homes under construction.

Indeed, the price of land is one of Neinor’s obsessions. Over the last year, it has purchased 2,400 plots in which it has invested €95 million. Neinor’s CEO believes that his firm has adopted a prudent policy in this regard (…).

As a result, it looks like Neinor will not be one of the candidates to bid for Sabadell’s subsidiary in the end. The bank is awaiting possible expressions of interest for its land company. The intention is to receive binding offers before the end of this quarter and to settle the sale during the month of April.

Interested parties

In terms of the parties that are interested in SDI, they include some of the main international funds such as Cerberus, Värde, Oaktree and Blackstone (…).

The sale of SDI comes after Banco Sabadell sold Solvia, its real estate servicer for €300 million, for which it obtained capital gains of €185 million (…).

Original story: El Español (by Arturo Criado)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Metrovacesa Explores Entering the Rental Home Sector

21 February 2019 – El Confidencial

Selling new build homes is still proving to be too much of a challenge for the times that are approaching. As such, another of the listed property developers, Metrovacesa, is evaluating its entry into the rental home sector, an option that its competitor Neinor (advised by Goldman Sachs) also has on the table. According to market sources, it is the first of the large players determined to take that step to fulfil its business plans.

Since the end of last year, the large owners of residential land have acknowledged that they are open to entering the rental market, either as owners or as turnkey suppliers for investors. The challenge, nevertheless, is disembarking in this segment without their margins being affected and therefore being forced to revise their business plans, like Juan Velayos already had to do with Neinor.

For the time being, the real estate company controlled by Santander (49%) and BBVA (21%) has recognised that it is considering rental housing as “a valid strategic option”, although it has not made any firm decisions in this regard, according to public declarations made by the property developer’s Head of Corporate Development. In its case, it will always be as a business to sell to a specialist third party operating in the residential property business.

This strategic reflection affects everyone, although the speeds of adoption will vary. In the case of Aedas, it has been working for some time on different scenarios that may open the door following the end of the current cycle, in which property developers with large land portfolios have been constituted, boosted by investment funds, because its not all about land in the main markets, nor are there infinite buyers for flats costing more than €400,000.

In the case of Metrovacesa, its numbers are the most chunky, since it has the largest liquid land portfolio in Spain, worth almost €2.7 billion, on which it estimates that around 38,000 homes could be built, according to official data. In its case, like with the rest of the listed firms, the largest volume of homes will be handed over in 2020, a short-term horizon, for which conservative estimates are beginning to be made.

The lower economic growth in Spain (2.8% in 2018 and 2.2% in 2019, according to the Bank of Spain) is another indicator of the macro-economic environment that is looming. In this situation, the potential impact that it may have on sales forecasts means that “many value alternative (rental) products as options for offsetting a likely slowdown in sales”, say sources at one of the large real estate consultancy firms.

Original story: El Confidencial (by C. H.)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Neinor & Vía Célere Lead the Ranking of Forecast House Deliveries for 2019

28 January 2019 – Cinco Días

Year after year, the new major players in the house construction sector are seeing the numbers in their growth plans increase. During 2019, the largest property developers created since 2015, and some of those reborn from the ashes during this latest upwards cycle, are expected to approach their cruising speed, above all, the listed companies Neinor, Aedas and Metrovacesa, which have been called to lead the residential construction sector together with Vía Célere. Even so, the sector is still very fragmented with lots of small companies.

Neinor Homes and Vía Célere have become the two entities with the largest number of home deliveries this year. In both cases, 2,000 clients will receive the keys to their homes, according to figures provided to Cinco Días by around twenty property developers. In these forecasts, the companies have detailed three concepts for their plans for 2019: homes that they will launch onto the market, homes that they will start work on and forecast deliveries.

Neinor Homes, created in 2015, and led by Juan Velayos (…) expects to start work on 3,000 homes this year, coming close to the cruising speed that it defined during its IPO, and it will start to market another 2,000 units.

Meanwhile, Vía Célere, controlled by the US fund Värde Partners, is in the middle of integrating the assets of Aelca, the other property developer owned by Värde, which has now emptied its portfolio (…). It is the only one of the large players that is not yet listed on the stock market; its plans in that regard were postponed last year.

The listed firm Aedas, also created in 2017 with land from another US fund, in that case, Castlelake, is also perceiving an upwards turn in its numbers. This year, it will hand over 1,055 homes, start marketing 2,500 homes and start building 3,000 homes, just two years after first appearing on the stage, with David Martínez as its CEO.

Meanwhile, Metrovacesa, the other large listed company, controlled by Santander (and in which BBVA holds a minority stake), clearly leads the business plans, with up to 4,500 homes to be newly marketed and whose construction will be launched. This one-hundred-year-old real estate company, which was cleaned up by the banks following the crisis, launched its new project in 2017 with Jorge Pérez de Leza, from Grupo Lar, as the CEO.

In terms of those entities backed by funds, the rescued firm Habitat also stands out, reactivated last year by Bain Capital, and which is planning to market 3,000 homes this year. Similarly, Cerberus took control of Inmoglacier in 2017 (…). That firm declined to provide its forecasts to this newspaper, but it is also set to play a significant role, given that it has become one of the real estate arms of the US fund, one of the most active in the purchase of assets from the banks and which also owns Haya Real Estate as its servicer.

The group of twenty-odd companies consulted will hand over almost 16,000 homes this year, will start work on 34,000 units and will begin marketing another 30,000 properties. These figures reflect the enormous fragmentation in the sector, which in the last 12 months has started 103,000 homes in total, according to figures from the Ministry of Development as at October 2018.

Small specialist property developers still carry a lot of weight, unlike in other countries where large players exist. Moreover, even though the rate of residential construction has taken off since 2014, it is still well below the peak of 2006 when 865,000 building permits were granted.

In terms of the new players also boosted by the international funds, they include other developers with a high rate of house sales: AQ Acentor (owned by the German fund Aquila), which is going to put 1,700 homes up for sale; Kronos Homes (backed by several European and US investors), which will market another 1,600 homes; and ASG Homes (backed by the British firm ActivumSG), which plans to add another 1,000 homes.

In terms of the survivors of the crisis, Amenabar stands out, the Gipuzkoan company, which expects to start work on 3,608 homes next year and to hand over 1,245 units. Another of the stalwarts is the Madrilenian firm Pryconsa, owned by the Colomer family, which has already reached a high number in terms of house starts: 1,285. In more modest terms, other important firms include the Basque entity Inbisa and the new entity Áurea Homes, the residential subsidiary of the Navarran construction group ACR (…).

Original story: Cinco Días (by Alfonso Simón Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Neinor Wants Sabadell’s Land & so is Competing with the Large Funds to Buy SDIN Desarrollo Inmobiliario

17 December 2018 – Voz Pópuli

The bidding for the land owned by Sabadell’s property developer, SDIN Desarrollo Inmobiliario, is going to start in a matter of days and none of the funds wants to miss the party. Everyone has their own interest, but there are some who may bid more strongly than others due to their close relationship with the bank. But this time, they will not be alone.

Neinor Homes wants to take a seat at the negotiating table, according to sources familiar with the operation speaking to Voz Pópuli. The property developer led by Juan Velayos is interested in obtaining the land that Sabadell owns in Madrid and Barcelona. The market classifies the plots as very good. Neinor has not made any comments in this regard.

Oaktree is also going to join the bidding – it has been a familiar face in Sabadell’s recent operations. The fund is very interested in acquiring SDIN Desarrollo Inmobiliario’s land. The plots have been valued at €1.3 billion, according to reports by El Confidencial, which have been confirmed by this newspaper.

Sources familiar with the operation have explained that the fund has a lot of interest after the joint venture that it formed with the group this summer to buy land from Iberdrola.

Cerberus

The third candidate in discord is another old hand: Cerberus. The giant also wants its share of the pie. The acquisition of the property developer Inmoglacier could be related. If it is successful with this operation, the fund could create a new “giant”, which would fulfil all of the requirements to debut on the stock market.

The bidding is expected to begin before the end of the year. It could even start this week but could also be delayed due to technical reasons (…). The intention is for this operation to be closed by the end of the first quarter of 2019 or the beginning of the second.

This operation will begin after Sabadell sold its servicer for €300 million to Intrum on Friday. Solvia has more than €30 billion in assets under management and has sold more than 94,000 properties in recent years.

Original story: Voz Pópuli (by David Cabrera)

Translation: Carmel Drake