Tag: loan to value

Velayos: Neinor Plans to Deliver 15,000 Homes by 2022

23 February 2018 – Eje Prime

Despite ending last year with a loss, Neinor Homes seems to have everything under control. The property developer is now heading into a new  five-year phase during which time it expects to leave behind those losses and invest almost €1.5 billion in the purchase of new land and to deliver up to 15,000 homes, according to explanations provided by Juan Velayos (pictured above), CEO of Neinor Homes, speaking to Eje Prime in an interview.

“You always have to read the cycle and, now, is a good time for the real estate business”, explains Velayos. “We complain that there is not as much land as we would like in the market, but the reality is there is, just not in the hands of property developers”.  Over the next few years, new land will start to be released, which will satisfy the desire of companies such as Neinor Homes, and other players that operate in this sector, including Aedas Homes, Vía Célere and Metrovacesa, to continue growing.

In 2018, Neinor Homes plans to invest around €250 million in land. “At the moment, we are studying land on our radar worth around €500 million, of which €151 million is already in the negotiation phase, another €145 million is under analysis and the remaining €217 million is strategic land for Neinor Homes”, says the director.

Over the next few years, Neinor Homes has set itself the challenge of investing between €300 million and €350 million in the purchase of new land until, at least, 2022. “Nevertheless, we are negotiating several purchase operations for non-buildable plots, minimising the use of own funds, whereby following the Anglo-Saxon model,” said Velayos, as one of the alternatives that he has found to continue gaining ground in the development of its business plan.

In terms of the delivery of homes, since its creation until 2017, Neinor Homes has delivered 432 homes, with a gross margin of approximately 28%. Now, the company has set itself the objective of handing over 1,000 homes in 2018, in order to reach its cruising speed over the following years and double the delivery of finished homes year after year. In this way, Neinor Homes expects to hand over 2,000 homes in 2019, 4,000 homes in 2020 and 8,000 homes between 2021 and 2022.

Currently, Neinor Homes has a portfolio of 12,472 homes in stock, including finished homes, homes under construction and homes under design, compared to 9,025 a year ago, which represents an increase of 28%. The property developer owns a portfolio of buildable land spanning 1.47 million m2, which has also grown since last year, by 29%.

In terms of Neinor Homes’ debt, according to Velayos, it is “more than under control”. The company has net debt amounting to €382 million, up by 31% compared to last year, when its credit obligations stood at €291.6 million. “It is healthy and an indicator that the business is performing well: we finance the construction phases using bank debt and the purchase of land using own funds”, says the executive. The group’s loan-to-value is 22%.

2018 – the turning point

The property developer lost €25 million in 2017, weighed down by the costs of its stock market debut, as the group reported yesterday to the National Securities and Exchange Commission (CNMV). Nevertheless, Neinor Homes still has the objective of becoming profitable in 2018. If Neinor Homes fulfils all of its objectives for the coming year, the company will sell and deliver (and receive the proceeds for) 1,000 homes, at an average price of €300,000. As such, with a return of 20%, the property developer could generate profits of €60 million.

The revenues of the company, which has been listed since March 2017 and for that reason does not compare its accounts with those of 2016, amounted to €225 million, of which €77 million proceeded from the new build property developer business and more than €114 million from the sale of “legacy“, assets proceeding from the real estate subsidiary of Kutxabank, which its former shareholder Lone Star purchased in 2015 to create it.

Following the same calculations, the turnover of the company from the handover of homes in 2018 would thus amount to €300 million, excluding any pre-sales that may be closed during the course of the year, which Neinor calculates will amount to €750 million.

Original story: Eje Prime (by Custodio Pareja)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Blackstone Puts €400M Of Catalunya Banc’s Mortgages Up For Sale

27 March 2017 – Expansión

The banks have put a red circle around 2017 in their calendars, as the year when the doubtful portfolios that have hurt them so hard in the past and that are still denting their balance sheets even now, will show signs of life. Some of the entities may end up generating more profits than they initially expected.

And Blackstone is leading the way. The US giant has created a securitisation fund containing some of the non-performing loans with a nominal value of €6,000 million that it purchased from Catalunya Banc in 2015 for almost €3,600 million. Two years later, and after restructuring many of the credits, the investment group has decided that the time has come to capitalise on its investment.

It will do so with the sale to investors of a portfolio containing €403 million of these formerly delinquent loans. It represents Blackstone’s second foray into this field. Last year, the firm opened fire with the first securitisation of structured loans in Europe, although now it is redoubling its efforts given that the volume up for sale is 52% higher.

The fund comprises 3,307 residential mortgages granted in Spain, with a loan to value (credit over the value of the home) of 60.9%. Almost 80% of these mortgages have been restructured and many of the borrowers are up to date with their repayments. Meanwhile, there has been no change to the rest, according to information that Blackstone has provided to Moody’s to allow the risk ratings agency to make its assessment.

Profits

Blackstone’s aim is to sell this portfolio to investors in order to materialise some of the gains obtained from the management of the non-performing loans. In all likelihood, the securitisation fund will be placed below its nominal value, but at a much higher level than Blackstone paid when it acquired the mortgages from Catalunya Banc, before the State intervened entity was acquired by BBVA.

In exchange, Blackstone will offer different coupons to investors, depending on the type of mortgages that they take on.

The fund has been divided into five tranches, depending on the risk. The first has a very high level of solvency and so will pay annual interest of 3-month Euribor plus a spread of 0.90%.

The second and third tranches, which still have high or intermediate solvency ratings, will pay premiums over Euribor of 1.9% and 2.5%, respectively. The fourth tranche is ranked below investment grade and will pay a return of 2.6%.

The objective of Blackstone and the three banks that it has engaged for the securitisation (Credit Suisse, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank) is that the operation will be completed next week.

A new market

This second securitisation by Blackstone is clear confirmation that a new market has opened up for buyers of delinquent portfolios from the banks. In fact, sources from several investment banks are confident that there will be a significant volume of secondary operations of this kind this year, where the new owners of the bank’s non-performing loans will sell their positions to other funds and to the market alike, through securitisations. (…).

Original story: Expansión (by Inés Abril)

Translation: Carmel Drake

British Fund Intu Finalises Purchase Of Xanadú For c. €520M

10 March 2017 – Expansión

The British private equity fund Intu is finalising the completion of a record deal in the Spanish real estate market with the purchase of the Xanadú shopping centre (in Arroyomolinos, Madrid) from Ivanhoé Cambridge for around €520 million, according to market sources.

The purchase – which the fund has been negotiating in exclusivity since January – will represent the largest operation involving a shopping centre in the history of the Spanish market, whereby exceeding the €495 million that Deutsche Bank paid for Diagonal Mar (Barcelona) last August, the €451 million that Intu paid for Puerto Venecia (Zaragoza) and the €375 million that Klépierre paid for Plenilunio (Madrid).

CBRE and the law firm Clifford Chance have advised Intu during the operation, whilst Eastdil has advised Ivanhoé, which bought Xanadú from the Mills Corporation in 2006, along with two other shopping centres, one in Canada – Vaughan Mills (Ontario) and one in Scotland – Saint Enoch (Glasgow) – for a combined value of around €770 million.

The operation will be financed by Santander, Crédit Agricole, CaixaBank and BBVA with a loan to value (percentage value of the asset that is covered by the loan) of 40%.

In parallel, Intu is looking for a partner to whom to transfer 50% of the share capital in Madrid Xanadú 2003, the company that owns the shopping centre. Market sources point to the Canadian fund CPPIB as a possible ally. Both firms are already partners in two other Spanish shopping centres owned by Intu: Puerto Venecia (Zaragoza) and Parque Principado (Asturias).

One of the other candidates interested in acquiring the asset was TH Real Estate, but it was pipped at the post a few months ago by Intu, as revealed by Expansión on 31 January.

With this operation, Intu, which has plans to develop new shopping centres in Málaga, Valencia, Mallorca and Vigo, is strengthening its position in Spain and picking up one of the trophy shopping centres in Madrid to boot.

The shopping centre, constructed in 2003, has a total surface area of 153,695 m2 spread over two levels and 220 stores. Its tenants include Inditex, El Corte Inglés, Hipercor, Bricor, Decathlon, Primark and Apple.

Xanadú Madrid receives almost 13 million visitors per year and generates sales of around €230 million.

The shopping centre houses an indoor ski area – the only one in Spain and the largest in Europe – covering around 18,000 m2, as well as 15 cinema screens, a mini-golf course, a mini theme park, themed restaurants and a bowling alley.

In addition, Ivanhoé signed an agreement with Parques Reunidos last summer to construct an aquarium in Madrid Xanadú. Both companies reached an agreement with Viacom International Media Networks, a division of Viacom, to construct a theme park based on Nickelodeon characters in Xanadú.

Original story: Expansión (by R. Arroyo and R. Casado)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Santander & BNP Put €319M Of Mortgages Up For Sale

19 October 2016 – Expansión

Unión de Créditos Inmobiliarios (UCI), the financial credit company owned jointly by Santander and BNP Paribas, has packaged up 3,850 residential mortgages in Madrid, Andalucía and Cataluña to sell them in the market. To this end, it has structured a securitisation fund amounting to €420 million, of which €319 million will be placed with final investors, a tranche that has been assigned a high quality AA rating by Standard & Poor’s.

It is the third operation that the entity has undertaken in less than a year, as part of the Prado series. Given that UCI is regarded as a special lender, it is not able to approach the European Central Bank in search of financing, and so it is taking advantage of the reactivation of the securitisation market. In total, it has launched three securitisation funds amounting to €1,410 million during this period and a large part of the debt has been sold to investors. On this occasion, UCI is paying competitive prices, of 65 basis points above 3-month Euribor.

According to financial sources, the types of clients involved in this specialist kind of mortgage transfer tend to be those who are unable to access a normal bank, in other words, those who have more risky profiles. But in this securitisation, as S&P has highlighted, the loans are more robust than in standard securitisations because they have lower loan to values (loan amount over appraisal value).

Original story: Expansión (by D. Badía)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Bankinter Revives Fixed Rate Mortgage War

9 June 2016 – Expansión

A new battle has commenced in the war between the banks to grant fixed rate mortgages. One of the most active entities in the commercial supply of these products, Bankinter, is redoubling its efforts. Yesterday, the bank announced widespread cuts in interest rates on its 5-, 10-, 15- and 20-year mortgages. Bankinter, whose fixed rate mortgages were already amongst the most competitive in the market, has cut the interest rate on its ten-year home loans from 1.75% to 1.6%; on its fifteen-year home loans from 2% to 1.8%; and on its twenty-year home loans from 2.3% to 2.1%.

The zero interest rate environment in the Eurozone has led the banks to offer fixed rate mortgages, given that 12-month Euribor, which is the index to which most floating rate mortgages are linked, is trading at negative rates (-0.018%). In this context, it is more profitable for the banks to offer fixed rate mortgages, given the limited margin they are able obtain on their variable rate products.

The main advantage for customers is that they know the amount of interest they will have to pay on the day they take out the mortgage; that figure is fixed and will not vary for the duration of the mortgage term. In other words, clients are protected against possible interest rate rises, although they would not benefit from any further hypothetical decreases.

Bankinter’s fixed rate mortgage has an arrangement fee of 1%, with a minimum of €350. It also charges a penalty of 0.5% during the first five years of the life of the loan in the event of its total or partial repayment, and of 0.25% thereafter, as well as a commission of 0.75% to offset the interest rate risk, in the event that the early repayment generates a loss of capital for the entity.

If Bankinter’s fixed rate mortgages are taken out to purchase a primary residence, then the value of the loan may not exceed 80% of the purchase price or appraisal value (the lesser of the two amounts). If the product is requested for a secondary residence, then the limit is 60% of the lower of those two values.

In addition, in order to benefit from these interest rates, the bank requires its borrowers to receive their salary into their Bankinter account, as well as to take out life assurance and home insurance with the entity. The applicable interest rates are higher if these products are not contracted.

The reductions also apply to the fixed element of Bankinter’s 15- and 20-year mixed (fixed and floating) rate mortgages, which decrease to 2% and 2.3%, respectively.

Original story: Expansión (by A.R.)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Botín Re-Opens The Mortgage Resale Market 8 Years On

10 June 2015 – Cinco Días

The packaging and resale of high-risk, or subprime, mortgages between large financial institutions in the United States was the epicentre of the international crisis that began to unravel in 2007 and which revealed its devastating force one year later, with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers.

When that bubble burst, it swept away much of the market for mortgage securitisations, amongst other things. In the case of Spain, which had become the second largest market in Europe and one of the most important on the global stage, the market vanished. But now, it is making a come back.

Unión de Créditos Inmobiliarios (UCI), the financing arm of Banco Santander that specialises in loans for home purchases, has just signed the first operation of this kind to be closed with investors since 2007.

Specifically, at the end of May, UCI placed a €450 million package of mortgages, backed by residential homes. The portfolio, which has been assigned a Aa2 rating by Moody’s, is considered to be a high quality product, since it comprises loans that, on average, cover 53.8% of the values of the homes (loan to value), compared with the limit of 80%, recommended as good practice in the sector.

It is understood, therefore, that the clients that took out these mortgages had (access to) significant resources beyond the financing they requested and that the real estate guarantee behind the loans (homes acquired across the whole of Spain between 2006 and 2013, of which 79% are located in Andalucía, Madrid and Cataluña) would more than cover any possible non-payment.

The sale received a great deal of interest from banks and investment funds, primarily those based in Germany, The Netherlands, France, the UK and Spain, with demand for the package exceeding its value by 1.7x, according to sources close to the operation.

The placement coupon was Euribor plus 0.85 points, compared with the differential of 25 or 30 basis points that was paid in Spain eight years ago. That lower differential is being paid now in the UK and The Netherlands, where the market has never completely closed, but where the differential increased to 150 basis points after the outbreak of the crisis.

Sources at UCI, which placed securitisations amounting to €12,000 million between 1994 and 2007, understand that “since this is the first transaction, a premium must be paid in order to return to the market”, but that it is still an “attractive level”.

The same sources say that the step has been taken as the result of three factors. “Until 2014, there were no transactions involving the public issuance of securitisation bonds in countries on the periphery of Europe. Nevertheless, following an RMBS (residential mortgage-based securitisation) bond issue in Italy, we saw an opportunity for us to issue debt”. They add that the debt purchase program launched by the European Central Bank has, in turn, led to the “revitalisation of the securitisation market”. “Despite that, after eight years of paralysis, bond issues have not been possible until now, since we needed to reach a post-crisis economic situation”.

UCI expects to undertake similar issues in the future and hopes that its example will encourage other entities to do the same.

Original story: Cinco Días (by Juande Portillo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Repossessions Still ‘Haunt’ Mortgages Granted At End Of The Boom

6 March 2015 – Cinco Días

So far, the economic recovery has not been sufficient to slow the increase in the number of mortgage foreclosure processes. In fact, 2014 closed with a total of 119,442 mortgage foreclosures in the property register, of which 70,078 related to homes (5.9% more than a year earlier), according to figures released by INE on Wednesday. The statistics also revealed that six out of every 10 of these processes (61.6%) related to loans granted between 2005 and 2008, i.e. at the end of the real estate boom.

Those are the most vulnerable loans; the ones that have the highest probability of ending up in foreclosure, as a result of what happened in the market. For the individuals who purchased their home between 2005 and 2008 paid the highest prices ever seen. If we add to the mix the fact that they were also more likely to be granted so-called high-risk mortgages, i.e. those with a loan-to-value ratio of more than 80%, then when prices began to decrease in 2008, their own particular terrible ordeal began.

Although no official statistics are compiled about how many mortgages with high loan-to-value ratios were granted during that period, during the bubble, they (are estimated to have) accounted for up to 18% of new loans (today they account for more than 13% of new mortgages, according to the Bank of Spain). This means that as soon as property prices decreased, the holders of those mortgages were trapped in a situation whereby they were technically bankrupt (with negative equity), since their liabilities (the debt pending payment on their mortgages) was greater than the value of the assets (the price they would obtain for their homes even if they managed to sell them).

Naturally, “when you are facing financial difficulties and you know that even if you sell your house you won’t be able to pay off your mortgage due to the loss in value of your property, then thaat acts as a kind of incentive to not continue making your mortgage repayments”, admits one financial institution.

In addition to the situation being faced by the holders of these mortgages, INE’s statistics also show that more mortgage foreclosure processes were recorded in 2014 than during the previous year. Of the more than 70,000 processes relating to homes, 44,682 related to homes that were owned by individual people and of those, 77.6% or 34,680, were processes in which the house that formed the subject of the process was the primary residence of the family unit, up 7.4% from 2013.

Foreclosure versus eviction

This is a pressing situation for the families and a tragedy in every single case, but as INE explained yesterday in its press release, not all of the mortgage foreclosures that are initiated and recorded in the property register end with the eviction of the owners. This is because the legal process that is launched at that stage (and counted for statistical purposes) may give rise to a number of alternative outcomes, such as an agreement to restructure the debt, which would prevent the owners from losing their property.

Moreover, if we compare this figure of 34,680 primary residences affected by a mortgage foreclosure process over the total number of family homes that exist in Spain (18,362,000), the percentage of those affected by a possible eviction amounts to just 0.18%. Another way of looking at the significance of these figures is to take the number of mortgages constituted during the period 2003-2013 over the total number of homes, as a benchmark. In this case, only 0.9% of the mortgages constituted resulted in a mortgage foreclosure process in 2014.

Another interesting fact from INE is that 16.3% of the mortgage foreclosures over homes last year were initiated over new homes, whilst the remaining 83.7% related to second-hand homes. In the case of new build properties, that figure represented a decrease of 4.3%, due to the ever decreasing weight of those properties in the market; whereas in the case of second-hand homes, there was a notable increase of 8.2%.

Original story: Cinco Días (by Raquel Díaz Guijarro)

Translation: Carmel Drake