Tag: Kronos

Vía Célere, Aedas and Kronos Submit €120-Million Proposal to Acquire Land in Los Berrocales

4 January 2020 – The developers Aedas, Vía Célere and Kronos have launched a joint bid to acquire two million square meters of land in Los Berrocales, Madrid. The land, the largest remaining plot of land in the capital’s south, has sufficient space to build up to 5,000 homes. The three companies submitted a proposal offering to pay 60 euros per square meter to a group of small property owners.

Market watchers expect protracted negotiations for the land, however. The regional authority has yet to agree to any kind of re-subdivision and urbanisation works. Even the most optimistic projections place the beginning of construction in 2022.

Las inmobiliarias Aedas, Vía Célere y Kronos han lanzado una oferta para adquirir dos millones de metros cuadrados de terreno en Los Berrocales, Madrid. La tierra, la mayor parcela de tierra restante en el sur de la capital, tiene espacio suficiente para construir hasta 5,000 casas. Las tres compañías presentaron una propuesta que ofrecía pagar 60 euros por metro cuadrado a un grupo de pequeños propietarios.

Sin embargo, los observadores del mercado esperan negociaciones prolongadas por las tierras. La autoridad regional aún tiene que aprobar cualquier tipo de obras de reparcelación y la urbanización. Incluso las proyecciones más optimistas sitúan el comienzo de la construcción en 2022.

Original Story: Idealista

Translation/Summary: Richard D. Turner

 

Aedas, Vía Célere and Kronos Join Together to Acquire La Fortuna, a 90-Hectare Plot of Land in Madrid

26 August 2019

Aedas, Kronos and Vía Célere joined together to acquire La Fortuna, a 900,000-m2 parcel of land to the southeast of Madrid. The property is located in the planned development of Los Berrocales and was sold by  Proinsa at a public auction for nearly 46 million euros.

The three developers bid jointly in the auction, which was held last month. The asset has more than 90 hectares of land and enough buildable land to develop about 2,500 flats, making it the most significant sale of land in Madrid in recent times.

Aedas is controlled by the American firm Castlelake; the US-based Värde Partners controls Vía Célere, and Kronos is Spain’s Kronos Homes’ developer.

Original Story: Cinco Días – Alfonso Simón Ruiz

Adaptation/Translation: Richard D. K. Turner

Barings Lends Kronos €40 Million to Finance Construction of New Shopping Centre

6 August 2019

The Kronos Investment Group announced that it had arranged a €40-million loan with Barings to finance the construction of a new shopping centre in the town of Dos Hermanas, Seville. The investment manager has lent 40 million euros to the union between the developer and another company to build a commercial park of 48,646 square meters and 2,000 parking spaces.

The new complex will have 64 stores, 70% of which have already been pre-leased. Construction is set to begin shortly and the mall is slated to open by the summer of 2020.

Original Story: Eje Prime

Adaptation/Translation: Richard D. K. Turner

Sabadell Opts to Sell Subsidiary to Oaktree

1 July 2019

Banco Sabadell, a Catalan bank, has opted to sell its developer, Sabadell Desarrollos Inmobiliarios, to the U.S.-fund Oaktree in a transaction reportedly worth 850 million euros. The asset management firm beat out its main rival for the asset, a partnership made up of Cerberus and Kronos.

Sabadell and Oaktree will now negotiate any additional particulars to the agreement. The sale would bring in a windfall for the Catalan bank, strengthening its capital ratio while reducing its risk-weighted assets (RWA).

Oaktree, in turn, will now compete with Neinor, Metrovacesa, Aedas, Via Célere and others. The developer’s holdings include high-quality, developable lands to the north of Madrid and in Barcelona.  Two thirds of the land is ready to develop or already under construction.

Original Story: El Confidencial – Jorge Zuloaga

Adaptation/Translation: Richard D. K. Turner

 

Cerberus Teams up with Kronos to Bid For Banco Sabadell’s Land Portfolio

19 June 2019 – Eje Prime

Cerberus and Kronos are joining forces in an attempt to acquire Banco Sabadell’s land. They are holding negotiations regarding how they would divide the plots, which are worth around €850 million in total, in the event that the US fund emerges victorious from the bid to acquire Sdin Residencial’s land portfolio.

In theory, Cerberus would hold onto the land that is ready for development as well as those plots already under construction (64% of the total). Meanwhile, Kronos would take ownership of the rest, including the reparcelled and sectorised plots, for which urban planning permission has been granted.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Sabadell Revises Down its Price Expectations for the Sale of its Property Developer SDin

21 May 2019 – Cinco Días

Banco Sabadell put its property development arm Solvia Desarrollos Inmobiliarios (Sdin) up for sale several months ago. Initially, the bank was expecting to receive proceeds of around €1 billion for the company, its employees and land. However, in light of the current climate, it is now revising down its expectations.

Investment funds are starting to face problems when it comes to generating returns from their investments in land and property what with many of the large property developers, such as Neinor Homes, slashing their short-term forecasts, the political uncertainty following the recent general election and the general nervousness that the current boom cycle is coming to an end.

As a result, the bank chaired by Josep Oliu (pictured above) is now hoping to receive binding offers amounting to around €900 million, which would considerably reduce the entity’s expected gains from the sale. Nevertheless, SDin owns around 300 prime plots and 130 promotions under development, whose combined valuation amounts to €1.3 billion, according Savills Aguirre Newman.

For the time being, Sabadell has four offers on the table from investment funds, including from Cerberus and Oaktree. The fund Kronos is also still in the running although it is less likely to prove victorious.

Sabadell had initially planned to close this operation by the end of June, but may now wait a little longer.

Original story: Cinco Días (by Ángeles Gonzalo Alconada)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Kronos Puts Land Worth c.€300M Up For Sale

16 May 2019 – Eje Prime

Kronos has engaged Deloitte to sell a batch of land worth between €200 million and €300 million ahead of the change in the economic cycle. In parallel, the property developer is also bidding for several other plots.

Kronos is keen to divest the land that does not fit with its business plan. It may sell the latest batch to a single buyer or split the portfolio into several lots.

Its divestment in Spain contrasts with its commitment to Portugal, where it has just acquired a plot of land in Lisbon for €100 million on which to build 240 homes. In total, the firm plans to spend €300 million buying up land over the next few years.

Since 2015, Kronos has invested €700 million in land with the capacity to build 12,000 homes.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Kronos Forces the Auction of Salvador Vila’s Star Plot in Valencia Worth €67M

20 February 2019 – Expansión

The court has approved the execution requested by the fund (Kronos), which purchased the debt associated with the plots on Avenida de las Cortes Valencianas, opposite the former Hilton hotel, from Sareb and is claiming €47 million from the Valencian property developer (Salvador Vila).

One of the last undeveloped plots on Avenida de las Cortes Valencianas has just gone to judicial auction. It is the plot of land located opposite the Hotel Meliá Valencia (formerly the Hilton), where the plan was to build a 114-metre tall tower containing homes. It was set to be a genuine icon but was never constructed because of the real estate crisis.

The land still belongs to one of the large Valencian property developers, Salvador Vila Soria, who also constructed several of the large towers located on the same avenue. Nevertheless, a change of hands appears imminent, given that the Court of First Instance number 27 of Valencia has approved the mortgage auction of the property at the request of Vistanova Developments, a company linked to the manager Kronos, which through Kronos Homes is one of the new large operators in the residential market.

Kronos acquired the debt that Salvador Vila held with Sareb and which included the mortgage secured by this land as collateral. In fact, the Managing Director of Kronos, Saïd Hejal, explained to Expansión in May his firm’s intention of starting construction on a 34-storey residential tower this year, which was going to be the tallest in Valencia, after taking over the debt from Sareb.

The legal auction officially started on 8 February and the period to submit bids ends at the beginning of March. According to the court, the debt claimed from Salvador Vila in the mortgage foreclosure lawsuit amounts to €47.62 million, of which €40 million proceeds from the principal and the rest from interest.

The value of the property for the auction is set at €67 million. The plot spans 6,926 m2 and has a buildability of 20,900 m2 (residential use) and another 3,100 m2 for tertiary use (…).

Original story: Expansión (by A.C.A.)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Kronos Homes Hands Over its First Developments & Invests €2bn in Land

30 January 2019 – Press Release

Kronos Homes, the residential real estate development brand of Kronos, has been consolidating its presence and position in the Iberian market with significant growth in 2018 and strong forecasts for the year ahead.

The company invested €2 billion in total during 2018 and is aiming to reach €2.4 billion in 2019. Of that amount, €700 million corresponds to investment in land in Spain and Portugal, a figure that it intends to increase by another €300 million in 2019 to reach €1 billion in land.

The focus of Kronos Homes continues to be the major cities and provincial capitals across the whole Iberian peninsula. In this way, whilst in 2018, it finished the year with a housing portfolio of 12,000 units across 16 developments, in 2019, it intends to increase that figure by 4,000 units to reach 16,000 homes in total across 24 developments (…).

In addition, in December 2018, the company delivered its first two developments on the Costa del Sol, Nature and Horizonte, located in Alicante and Benalmádena, respectively (…).

Nature and Horizonte are the first developments that Kronos Homes has delivered since it began its activity in the residential sector in Spain in 2015. The forecasts from Kronos Homes indicate that the firm will deliver 500 more homes across five developments during 2019.

Original story: Press Release

Translation: Carmel Drake

Kronos Finalises €400M Investment in Cataluña with Land Purchases in Gavá & Sant Cugat

1 June 2018 – Eje Prime

Kronos Homes wants to be a leading player in the Catalan residential market. The Spanish property developer has just completed the purchase of two plots in Gavá and Sant Cugat del Vallés. These two operations form part of the significant investment plan that the company has initiated in Cataluña, where it already has investments amounting to €400 million. “The objective is to close at least two more operations in Cataluña before the end of 2018”, explained Manuel Holgado, Partner at the real estate firm, speaking to Eje Prime.

The first of the acquired plots, in Gavá, has a surface area of approximately 173,500 m2, with capacity for the construction of 1,500 homes. The company plans to start marketing this project within two years.

In the case of the plot in Sant Cugat, it is located in the centre of the prime Barcelona city and spans 33,800 m2, on which 320 homes are going to be built. These more than 1,800 homes will be added to the 900 units that the firm currently has underway in four other projects.

Two of those projects are located in Tarragona, a province in the south of Cataluña, with one development in the provincial capital and one in Calafell. Both will start to be marketed this June and the property developer, founded in 2014 by Saïd Hejal, has taken advantage of the opportunity presented by the Madrid Real Estate Fair (SIMA) to unveil the two developments.

The investment by Kronos is Cataluña is going to continue to increase over the coming months and Holgado says that “we would like to close at least two more operations before the end of 2018”. The company’s Director General, Majda Labied, also points out that “we have just opened an office in the centre of Barcelona, which strengthens our 100% commitment to Cataluña”.

Currently, the property developer has two promotions in the province of Barcelona, namely H20 and O12, two residential projects with an innovative design, which are located in the maritime area of Badalona. The first promotion has 252 homes with 25 different types of homes.

Entry into the Costa Brava

Having entered Barcelona and Tarragona, Kronos now only has Girona and Lleida left to conquer. The Costa Brava is one area “where we have been working actively for a while”, explains Holgado, although the property developer has not yet found the right opportunity to start a project there.

The forecast by Kronos Homes for the next four years involves it doubling the number of homes underway in Cataluña at the moment. The real estate firm also has a presence in Madrid, the Costa del Sol, Andalucía and Levante, and wants to branch out into new markets over the next few years. Areas such as Euskadi, for example, have always been on the company’s radar. The firm is keen to invest and position itself as one of the leading property developers in Spain.

Investment of €500 million in land all over Spain 

To build homes, you need land and, to that end, Kronos is going to invest €500 million between now and 2021 in the purchase of primarily residential land. The company will thereby acquire sufficient land to build 8,000 homes all over the country.

With a land bank spanning more than 1 million m2, spread between Madrid, Cataluña, Costa del Sol and Alicante, the intention of Hejal and the other shareholders that support him, including, in addition to Holgado and Labied, Ignacio Ocejo and Enrique Feduchy, is to expand the business to more Spanish provinces. The firm is currently making headway in the provinces of Córdoba, Sevilla and Cádiz, amongst others.

Original story: Eje Prime (by Jabier Izquierdo)

Translation: Carmel Drake