Tag: Management team

Hispania Negotiates New Strategic Focus With Soros

29 December 2016 – El Confidencial

It hasn’t always been a Socimi. When it debuted on the stock market on 14 March 2014, Hispania Activos Inmobiliarios was an investment company owned by a Socimi, a structure that had chosen very carefully, given that the formula allowed it, amongst other things, to acquire assets by purchasing debt, like it did, for example, with Hotel Guadalmina, its first major operation in the most tourist segment of the real estate business.

But there was another more fundamental reason for adopting that structure: the limited life period that it was born with. Unlike the other three large Socimis – Merlin, Lar España and Axiare –which fired the starting gun from the get go in this booming sector, Hispania was created in accordance with a detailed timetable that included three investment years and another three divestment years, as the company explained in detail in its IPO prospectus.

Nevertheless, the company left the door open to expand this horizon, provided it received the green light from its shareholders at the General Shareholders’ Meeting, a date towards which the team at Azora, Hispania’s management firm, is now working. Azora is finalising a new proposal with the aim of receiving the approval of its investors in March, when the vehicle will celebrate three years of life.

According to several sources, the now Socimi (it adopted this company structure just before the summer) is negotiating with its main shareholders, led by George Soros, not only to extend the company’s life term, but also to adopt a new value proposition, based on specialising increasingly in hotels, to the detriment of offices and homes, and in modifying the management policy. Hispania itself has declined to make any comments in this regard.

The Hungarian magnate’s confidence in Hispania was underlined during the company’s latest capital increase, which he subscribed to in accordance with his proportional share, and in the messages that he has sent to the Azora team, in that he is willing to continue to back the company, but that he wants to make a series of changes that will directly affect the interests of the management company.

According to the same sources, Soros is interested in internalising Hispania’s management team in some way, rather than having it operating externally as it does currently, and in modifying the fee policy, which the management contract splits into a fixed part, the base fees, and a variable part, the incentive fees. The first is a commission linked to the investment percentage of the initial net funds raised through the IPO; and the second is a commission relating to the level of returns obtained from the investments.

Strategic change

Since its creation and until the third quarter of 2016, the last period for which official figures are available, Hispania has invested €857.1 million in hotels, €395.3 million in offices and €177.9 million in the residential sector, bringing its total investment volume to €1,430.3 million, almost three times more than the amount it raised through its debut on the stock market (€500 million).

It was then that Soros appeared as the company’s major shareholder and anchor investor, and that is a role that he continues to play today, controlling as he does 16.67% of the shares. (…).

In recent months, the company has undergone a major reorganisation of its structure, with the conversion of all of its subsidiaries into Socimis and the absorption of them. All of these steps are oriented towards the same purpose, to convince the shareholders of the appropriateness of continuing to back this vehicle. Albeit, with a new road map. The proof will be in the pudding in March.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Ruth Ugalde)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Cinven Buys Tinsa From Advent International

7 April 2016 – El Mundo

The European private equity house Cinven has signed an agreement to purchase the appraisal company Tinsa from Advent International, which acquired the firm in 2010 for €100 million. The consideration to be paid this time around has not been disclosed. The appraisal company was put up for sale at the beginning of 2016 and since then experts have speculated that the company could be sold for up to €350 million.

Tinsa, created in 1985 and headquartered in Madrid, is the largest property valuation and real estate advisory services company in Spain and Latin America, and performs mortgage appraisals on all kinds of properties, including tertiary and residential assets.

Currently the appraisal company operates in more than 25 countries around the world, with a strong presence in Latin America and dedicated offices in Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Chile, Perú, México and Colombia.

Cinven highlights Tinsa’s in-house technology, which is at the forefront of the market and allows it to offer accurate and efficient valuation solutions to its clients, as well as complementary services, such as energy audits and the monitoring of property developments.

Tinsa has 580 employees and a network of around 2,000 appraisal experts. The company performs more than 300,000 appraisals per year around the world and has more than 100,000 clients, including more than 90% of Spain’s banks.

Cinven also highlights that Tinsa is integrated into the process of its main clients, the banks, and that it plays a key role in the risk assessment process for granting new mortgages. In addition, Cinven indicates that the current onerous regulatory context requires properties to be appraised before any new mortgages can be granted, and imposes periodic valuations of banks’ real estate portfolios. (…).

Moreover, Cinven will inherit Tinsa’s strong management team, led by its Chairman, Ignacio Martos, formerly the CEO of Opodo, the portal that used to be owed by Amadeus, and by its Finance Director, Juan Guerra. (…).

Tinsa represents Cinven’s sixteenth investment through its Fondo 5. Advisors to this operation have included Rothschild y Socios Financieros (financial advisors), Clifford Chance (Cinven’s legal advisor), Uría Menéndez (Advent’s legal advisor), Oliver Wyman (Advent’s commercial advisor), McKinsey (Cinven’s commercial advisor), KPMG (accountant), Deloitte (tax) and Garrigues (employment law).

Original story: El Mundo

Translation: Carmel Drake

ING Grants €125M Loan To Acciona Inmobiliaria’s Subsidiary

5 January 2016 – Bolsa Manía

ING Commercial Banking has granted a 7-year syndicated loan amounting to €125 million to Compañía Urbanizadora Coto, S.L., a subsidiary of Acciona Inmobiliaria, according to a statement issued by the company.

The loan will be used to finance Acciona Inmobiliaria’s property portfolio, which comprises seven residential buildings, two office buildings and a 50% stake in a shopping centre, all of which are located in the centre of Madrid.

This financing agreement forms part of the framework of the company’s new strategy, which is being led by the new management team that joined Acciona Inmobiliaria in September 2014. Currently, the company’s plans are focused on boosting the profitability of its residential business by joining forces with a leading partner, as well as the possible IPO of its real estate business through its conversion into a Socimi.

The CEO of ING Commercial Banking, Íñigo Churruca, said that with this financing agreement, ING Real Estate Finance “is consolidating its financing strategy to focus on prime assets located in the best areas in Spain and to provide support to real estate companies in the sector, just like it has being doing for the last 20 years”.

In this sense, he confirmed that ING Real Estate Finance was one of the most active financing entities in the Core Commercial Real Estate sector in 2015.

Original story: Bolsa Manía

Translation: Carmel Drake

Echegoyen Shakes Up Sareb’s Management Team

14 May 2015 – El Confidencial

The Chairman of Sareb appoints Alfredo Guitart as the new Director General of Global Transformation and does away with three business areas: Transactions, Restructurings and Assets.

Jaime Echegoyen (pictured above, second from right) has got down to business. It has taken just over three months for the Chairman of Sareb, who replaced Belén Romana in the role, to make changes to the entity’s management team. And the changes are not insignificant. In a stroke, the head of the ‘bad bank’ has done away with three business areas, those relating to Transactions, Restructurings and Assets, whose duties will now fall under the new Business team, according to official sources.

Having removed the role of CEO, this organisational restructuring at Sareb turns a ‘man of the house’, the until now Director of Global Transformation, Alfredo Guitart (pictured above, second from left), into the new Director General. In this way, Jaime Echegoyen will depend on a confidant from Belén Romana’s original team, to complete the first round of promotions focused around the areas of Legal Affairs (Oscar García Maceiras – pictured above, right) and Global Resources (Manuel Gómez Gilabert – pictured above, second from left).

These changes take place after Sareb externalised the management of its foreclosed assets to four real estate services (Haya Real Estate, Solvia, Altamira and ServiHabitat). The main person affected by this reorganisation has been Luis Martín Guirado, who has served as the Head of Transactions for less than a year – he joined the ‘bad bank’ in July 2014 from BNP Real Estate, where he was CEO, to replace Juan Barba.

In parallel, Sareb has set up a Direct Management team, which will report directly to the Chairman. This area will be led by Juan Ramón de Díos, who joined the bad bank at the end of January from Barclays, the financial institution where Echegoyen was previously CEO. The new figurehead will address those tasks that the company has decided to manage using its own teams, such as its relationships with large clients, institutional sales and real estate development.

The new director general will be tasked with coordinating and supervising the work performed by the servicers, “as well as the transformation process that these new servicers must undertake to comply with Sareb’s requirements”. For this, the bad bank will have two teams, one for the Network (Marisa González), which will be responsible for driving and monitoring the work performed by the new servicers, and the other for Products and Services (Enrique Martín Barragán), which will set the commercial strategy.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Carlos Hernanz)

Translation: Carmel Drake