Who are the Key Players in the Spanish Real Estate Market?

4 May 2018 – El Mundo

House sales are on the rise, as are house prices and rentals. Mortgages are also continuing their upward trend. Moreover, the resurgence of real estate activity is now a reality that can be seen in the increase in the number of new construction and real estate companies.

A recent report published by Gedesco, a firm specialising in financing for companies, says that one in four of the businesses created in Spain during the first quarter of 2018 belonged to the construction or property development sectors.

That represented a volume of almost 6,000 companies, 1.75% more than during the same quarter in 2017. With respect to the last three months of last year, the increase amounts to 21.9%.

Some good news to help us try to forget the fact that 142,576 construction companies disappeared between 2008 and January 2017 – both building firms and property developers -, according to the latest data from Spain’s National Institute of Statistics (INE).

In eight years, the sector went from having almost 360,000 companies to having just 216,987, a reduction of 39%. If we take the look at real estate companies, there were 106,375 in 2008, whereas there were just 67,812 by 2017, almost half.

The data compiled by INE reveals another interesting fact: the construction companies that had more than 5,000 employees in 2008 have disappeared. Although there were actually only three (including building firms and property developers), by 2017, there were just nine companies with 500 or more workers.

Names such as Martinsa Fadesa – created by the businessman Fernando Martín-, Astroc (chaired by Enrique Bañuelos) and Nozar went into the history books of the Spanish real estate sector, after failing to survive the impact of the recession.

Good health

Now, the outlook for the sector is looking healthy, in line with the increase in construction activity, which last year recorded a 28.9% increase in new build permits, to 80,786. According to the latest data from the Ministry of Development, corresponding to the first two months of this year, new home permits rose by 17.4% to 8,035 in February. Estimates in the sector indicate an output of 150,000 homes p.a. for the next few years.

For Elisa Valero, Marketing Director at Gedesco, “the construction sector is back in business”. Nevertheless, the director adds that “the creation of businesses has never gone away, if we look back a few years, the property developers were still there, but the volume of business creation was much lower”.

Whereas 5,000 companies are now being created, in 2011 – at the height of the crisis – just 2,000 were being constituted (…).

Success stories

Another report published in recent weeks by the College of Registrars in Spain also shows that real estate activity in the country is gaining momentum. In 2017, the weight of construction companies and property developers over the total number of businesses constituted rose to 20%, and the rate of growth in relation to 2016 was 14%.

But, looking beyond the figures and back to specific cases (…) we see, for example, that two of the largest property developers of the current cycle were created less than three years ago. The firms in question: Neinor Homes and Aedas, which were created in 2015 and 2016, respectively.

The origins of Vía Célere, another of the important property developers these days, dates back to 2007, at the height of the crisis. The firm emerged after Juan Antonio Gómez-Pintado sold the company that he had chaired, Agofer, and created Vía Célere.

In all three cases, the presence of funds in the shareholding of the companies has stimulated their rates of investment to purchase land on which to build new homes.

Second chances

On the list of property developers that have been created recently, highlights include Kronos Homes, Stoneweg and Q21 Real Estate.

There is another noteworthy name on the current panorama, which, although it cannot be considered a new company, is a clear example of the resurgence of a business after the crisis. The company in question is Metrovacesa. Following a facelift by its creditor banks, it returned to the stock market at the beginning of this year, after abandoning it in 2013.

The firm, controlled by BBVA and Santander, stands out since it is the largest landowner in Spain, amongst the listed property developers, with 6.1 million m2 of land spread over the whole country, with the capacity to build 37,500 homes.

Business transformations such as the one involving Metrovacesa were commonplace during the crisis and resulted in the appearance of new players on the real estate stage.

Another illustrative example has been the birth of the so-called servicers. These companies have emerged in recent years from the former real estate subsidiaries of the banks.

Altamira (whose origins are found in Banco Santander), Servihabitat (La Caixa), and Solvia (Banco Sabadell), amongst others, are fulfilling the mission entrusted to them: to take on the bank’s property, enabling them to complete their clean-ups and to divest the assets by taking advantage of the current boom in activity.

The servicers, whose main activity is located in the Community of Madrid, are also responsible for selling the properties of another one of the stars created in recent years: Sareb, commonly known as the bad bank.

In 2018, that company celebrates its 5th birthday, and during its short life, it has taken over the properties of the entities that have been intervened as a result of the bank restructuring (…).

In recent months, Sareb has also started to market its first new build developments constructed on own land that it holds in its portfolio. In addition, last week, it launched a campaign to sell 3,314 homes along the coast, 95% of which will be lived in for the first time by their new owners.

The Socimis

If there is one group of players that stands out above all of the other newly created real estate companies it is the Socimis.

The real estate investment companies started to trade on the Spanish stock exchange in 2012 as a result of a regulatory change introduced by the Government that gave them free reign to do so.

The Socimis Entrecampos and Promorent were the first to make their debuts. Six years on, there are 51 such companies and, according to some estimates, that number may reach 100 in the future. Merlin, Axiare, Hispania, Lar España, Testa and Colonial – the largest by volume – have all been created in the last four years and are now competing with property developers, such as Neinor and Aedas, on the real estate stage and on the stock market.

In April, one of the newest faces, Sareb’s Socimi Témpore, made its debut. In its first month on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB), it has seen its share price appreciate by 3.85%. When it made its stock market debut, the company’s valuation amounted to €152 million (…).

Original story: El Mundo (by María José Gómez-Serranillos)

Translation: Carmel Drake

FT: Spain’s Construction Sector Rises From The Ashes

28 September 2017 – Financial Times

When Juan Velayos left his job at the accountancy firm PwC to become chief executive of Spanish housebuilder Neinor Homes two years ago, some people thought he was crazy.

Construction companies in Spain once built more residential homes every year than the rest of western Europe combined, fuelled by cheap debt. But a 35% slump in prices after the 2007 financial crisis left much of the sector bankrupt.

Spain still has half a million new unsold homes, many in surreal empty cities that have become monuments to a speculative property bubble that brought down the country’s banking sector and the wider economy.

“The markets at the time were sceptical about the opportunity [in Spanish house building],” says Mr Velayos. “They were sceptical about the momentum for residential. They were surprised we were buying land so aggressively.”

But Neinor, created by US private equity group Lone Star in 2014, has become a success story, one of the country’s first residential homebuilders able to rise out of the ashes of the ruined sector and build again.

Six months ago Neinor Homes became the first to float on the Madrid stock exchange, with Lone Star selling 60% of the company, which was valued at €1.3bn. Its share price has risen by 13% since then.

“We knew there was an opportunity because the Spanish economy was growing again and for nearly a decade there had been practically no new residential homes built,” says Mr Velayos.

Neinor served as a catalyst for the whole sector, with others entering the market. Companies such as Aedas, Vía Célere, Aelca and Metrovacesa are also building, giving the sector depth for investors.

“Residential construction activity in Spain is finally back,” says Adolfo Ramirez-Escudero, chief executive of the Spanish arm of real estate service firm CBRE. “The demand is there and companies are building again.”

Many of these companies are also now considering initial public offerings. Two people with knowledge of the deal say that Aedas is considering a listing this year. Aedas declined to comment.

This comes as the wider Spanish property market seems to have turned a corner. House prices fell by 35.2% from 2007 to 2015, according to property site Idealista, but are up by 3% this year and rose by 2% last year.

Analysts say this is set to continue as Spain’s economy continues to grow at about 3% a year — one of the strongest in the eurozone.

“The scarcity of new housing in some places and the impulse of demand, supported by employment growth, point to new price increases,” says Jorge Sicilia, the chief economist of BBVA, the Spanish banking group.

Investment into Spain’s property market has come in stages, starting with international funds run by Goldman Sachs, Cerberus Capital Management and Blackstone, which bought bad loans and apartment portfolios as early as 2013.

This was followed by the creation of real estate investment trusts — known in Spain as Socimi — which shortly afterwards started looking at the commercial property and rental markets.

Four big Spanish Socimis — Axiare, Merlin Properties, Hispania and Lar España — are already up and running. Combined profits for the four groups in the first quarter of 2017 were up 50% from the same period last year.

But the return of the residential building sector on top of commercial suggests that the market is maturing and returning to normal after a decade of crisis that saw big players such as Reyal Urbis and Martinsa Fadesa file for bankruptcy.

“In commercial and residential property, everyone has the same thesis,” says Fernando Ramirez, head of investor relations at Merlin. “Spain is recovering and property is still cheap.”

The return of Spanish construction is good for the wider Spanish economy, particularly job creation. The construction sector once employed more than 2.5m people, compared with just 1m after the crash.

A rise in house prices is also positive for the banking sector, which has benefited from the influx of institutional money that has pushed up the prices of their portfolios of distressed property assets and provided a market to sell.

However, the story is not all positive.

Spain’s biggest listed construction groups such as ACS or Ferrovial are unlikely to benefit from higher property prices, as they are focused on large infrastructure projects, which are still in short supply as the government holds back on spending.

The recovery is also concentrated in big cities such as Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia, as well as the tourist hotspots such as Málaga and the Balearic Islands. In much of more rural Spain, the recovery has not happened.

This is partly due to the overhang of half a million unsold new houses in parts of Spain. “In Madrid and Barcelona, there is nowhere near enough houses and demand is outstripping supply,” says Fernando Encinar, the chief executive of Idealista.

“If you drive 40km from Madrid through to Valdeluz there are still thousands of empty properties and that market is a long way from recovering,” he says.

Mr Velayos adds that while the market is coming back, the country is a long way from the pre-financial crisis boom — adding that the frothy exuberance of those years is unlikely to return.

In effect, the market is developing on a different model from before the financial crisis, with building financed by equity rather than debt. “The days where the builder and the buyer were both 100% debt financed are long gone,” he says.

Original story: Financial Times

Apollo, Bain & Oaktree Compete To Acquire Habitat

25 September 2017 – El Confidencial

A new large real estate operation is on the horizon. The process to sell Habitat Inmobiliaria has entered the home stretch, after the Catalan company selected a shortlist of three candidates to submit their bids.

The three finalists are the international funds Apollo, Bain and Oaktree, whose binding offers are expected to be received by the beginning of October, according to several sources familiar with the operation. The bids are expected to amount to between €200 million – €250 million and the intention is to announce the winner before the end of the year.

Habitat is the heir of the former Ferrovial Inmobiliaria, the subsidiary that the Del Pino family’s group sold to the Catalan property developer, controlled at the time by Bruno Figueras, for €2,200 million at the end of 2006. That deal was signed just before the outbreak of the crisis and it converted the Catalan company into the fifth largest property developer in the country. Nevertheless, that glory was short-lived.

Just two years after that Pharaonic purchase, Habitat filed for the fourth largest creditor bankruptcy in history, by declaring itself in ‘suspension of payments’ with debt amounting to €2,800 million, exceeded only by Abengoa, Martinsa-Fadesa and Reyal-Urbis.

From there, it began a titanic fight to survive, which included a preliminary agreement in the spring of 2010, which saw it emerge from bankruptcy and then, a modification to that agreement, five years later, which gave control of the company to its creditor funds.

In 2015, firms such as Capstone, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Värde and Marathon acquired 70% of the company’s capital, by converting the bulk of its debt into shares, and they ordered a return to house construction, to take advantage of the recovery in the sector.

Moreover, those firms continued as the group’s main financiers, with a participation loan of €70 million and another senior loan of €80 million, they took over the management, and they gradually sidelined Bruno Figueras; he currently holds the role of Vice-President.

At the time, the company analysed the option of organising a sales process, but that never ended up happening. The same idea was revived during the first half of this year when Habitat engaged Irea to organise a sale, merger or the entry of a new shareholder into the company.

After almost 11 years (since the purchase of Ferrovial Inmobiliaria), the Catalan property developer is barely a shadow of its former self, but it still holds a juicy portfolio of buildable land – currently, the most sought-after asset by international funds – concentrated in Madrid, Cataluña, Andalucía and Valencia, plus the company also has a presence in Aragón, Portugal and Hungary.

The three finalists in the bid for Habitat have competed in the past for some of the most important real estate operations of recent times, such as the purchase of Vía Célere by Värde, which Bain analysed, and the acquisition of the €30,000 million in real estate assets from Santander-Popular by Blackstone, which Apollo bid for.

Whoever ends up taking control of Habitat will have the perfect platform to create its own group and to start to compete with other investment giants who have already trodden this path, such as Lone Star, the owner of Neinor Homes; Castlelake, owner of Aedas; and Värde, the primary shareholder of Vía Célere and Aelca.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Ruth Ugalde)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Reyal Urbis’ Liquidation Process Begins

6 September 2017 – Expansión

Three months after receiving the “No” decision from its creditors to its payment proposal, the real estate company Reyal Urbis is starting its liquidation process, with Sareb, the Tax Authority and several banks, such as Santander, as the main beneficiaries.

On Monday, the property developer controlled by Rafael Santamaría received the ruling from Mercantile Court number six in Madrid, ordering the launch of the liquidation phase. In this way, Reyal Urbis will star in the second largest bankruptcy in Spain’s history, with debt amounting to more than €3,500 million, exceeded only by that of Martinsa Fadesa.

This new phase will be led by the bankruptcy administrator, given that the judge is continuing to suspend the managers of the company and has ordered the termination of its corporate governance bodies.

Since its appointment as the bankruptcy administrator in February 2013, the audit firm DBO has taken care of the company’s legal proceedings. It was responsible for submitting the payment proposal prepared by the company for its creditors, which included discounts of more than 90% on its liabilities. Only 32.7% of its shareholders supported that payment plan in June, which effectively condemned the company to extinction.

Now, the administrations will have to determine the best solution for the creditors, which are owed around €3,600 million, according to the most recent figures presented, whilst the company owns assets worth €1,170 million as at 31 December 2016.

Portfolio

The company’s assets include €188 million corresponding to properties that generate rental income and €863 million relating to around 200 finished homes and land. Specifically, Reyal Urbis owns one of the largest land portfolios in Spain, with 6.7 million m2, exceeding the large property developers such as Metrovacesa (6 million) and Neinor Homes (1.3 million).

Distributed over more than 30 cities in Spain and Portugal (the company owns assets in Lisbon and Porto), the portfolio of land and rental assets, such as the best-located hotels in the Rafael Hoteles chain, as well as its stake in the Castellana 200 retail and office complex, will be the jewels in the crown to be shared out amongst the creditors or sold to allow them to recover at least some of their investment, according to sources close to the process.

Original story: Expansión (by Rocío Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Reyal Urbis Files For Spain’s Second Largest Bankruptcy

21 June 2017 – Cinco Días

The long-awaited death of Reyal Urbis is approaching. The real estate company has failed to convince a majority of its creditors to accept the proposed agreement presented by the entity chaired by Rafael Santamaría, which included significant discounts of between 80% and 90% of a total debt balance amounting to €4,600 million. It is the second largest liquidation ever in history, following that of the property developer Martinsa-Fadesa, which folded with a debt of around €7,000 million.

The proposed agreement presented by the company has not received sufficient backing given that in the case of the ordinary debt, it only obtained favourable votes from 32.7% of the creditors; another 37.79% voted against the proposal and the remaining 29% abstained, according to legal sources. In the case of the syndicated loan, the votes did not reach the 75% threshold either.

The bankruptcy administrator, namely, the audit firm BDO, is obliged to communicate the result of the vote that takes place in Commercial Court number 6 in Madrid, where the judge will issue the proposed liquidation ruling, with an equity black hole of €3,436 million.

The liquidation of Reyal Urbis was finalised after its major creditors, including Sareb and the opportunistic funds that had acquired some of the liabilities in recent weeks, rejected the proposed agreement, as disclosed by Cinco Días at the end of May.

The company has liabilities worth more than €3,200 million corresponding to a syndicated loan, in which Sareb holds a crucial stake, with more than €1,000 million proceeding from loans from the former savings banks. In addition, Reyal Urbis owed almost €900 million in ordinary debt and more than €400 million to the Tax Authorities. In fact, the real estate company is the largest debtor on the list of overdue debtors published by the Tax Authorities.

The property developer is dying just a decade after its merger which saw it become one of the large real estate companies in the country, together with Martinsa-Fadesa, Colonial and Astroc. Its President, Rafael Santamaría, a technical architect by training, has spent his whole life working for the family business. He was appointed CEO in 1985 and took over from his father as President in 1997. In 2006, he starred in one of the largest deals in the sector, after acquiring Urbis from Banesto for €3,300 million.

But that joy was short-lived. The burst of the real estate bubble dragged him down, just like it did Martinsa, Habitat and Nozar. The company filed for voluntary creditors’ bankruptcy in February 2013 after Sareb, BBVA and Santander refused to refinance its debt.

Santamaría’s last ditch attempt to save the company came with an aggressive liquidation proposal. That plan included discounts of 90% on the ordinary loans. In the case of the syndicated loan, the offer included the “dación en pago” of assets, which would have meant accepting discounts of around 80%. In turn, the Tax Authorities negotiated a unilateral payment plan for the €400 million owed.

That aggressive plan did not seduce the creditors, who have seen the possibility of recovering their capital go up in smoke, choosing instead the option of liquidating the company’s remaining assets, which are currently worth almost €1,200 million.

Original story: Cinco Días (by Alfonso Simón Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Reyal Urbis Faces Key Week In Its Effort To Avoid Liquidation

29 May 2017 – Expansión

Reyal Urbis is facing a key week for determining whether or not it will receive sufficient backing from its banks and creditors to allow it to emerge from the bankruptcy in which the real estate company has been immersed since 2013 and whereby avoid liquidation.

The deadline for the creditors of the company, which is controlled and chaired by Rafael Santamaría, to communicate whether or not they accept the debt payment plan proposed by the firm, is this Wednesday 31 May.

The Tax Authority is one of Reyal Urbis’ largest creditors, given that the company owes around €400 million to the public purse, as well as to Sareb and the main financial institutions.

In the event that the real estate company does not obtain sufficient backing from its creditors, it would be forced to file for liquidation. That would constitute the second disappearance of a large real estate company after Martinsa Fadesa’s demise.

Reyal Urbis owes debt amounting to €3,572 million to the banks alone, and at the end of the first quarter of this year, it reported negative equity of €3,436 million.

The plan through which the company hopes to ensure its viability involves agreeing a unilateral payment plan with the Tax Authorities, different from the one offered to the other creditors.

The real estate company is proposing paying off the debt it owes to the financial institutions using real estate assets, an offer that, given the depreciations in values, would represent a discount (on the debt).

Overcoming paralysis

By emerging from bankruptcy, Reyal is also looking to overcome the paralysation that it has been immersed in for the last four years, during which time it has not constructed a single home and has barely managed to sell any assets or manage the hotels for rent in its real estate portfolio, covering 123,000 m2.

In this way, at the end of 2016, the company reported losses of €155 million, similar to the previous year.

In addition, Reyal Urbis’ bankruptcy procedure has been delayed, given that, at the end of 2015, Commercial Court number 6 in Madrid rejected the proposed agreement that had been presented by the company at the beginning of that year. After appealing to the Provincial Court, the real estate company managed to get the proposal agreed and processed more than a year later, at the beginning of 2017.

Original story: Expansión

Translation: Carmel Drake

Värde Buys Up Reyal Urbis’ Debt To Exchange For Its Assets

22 May 2017 – Expansión

The American fund Värde Partners, which owns the property developers Vía Célere and Aelca, has become one of the main creditors of the real estate company Reyal Urbis. It is negotiating to take over more loans, which it plans to exchange for land.

The fund Värde Partners is competing with Lone Star to become the largest residential investor in Spain. The fund, which first entered the Spanish market in 2013, is progressing with its investments in the country and has placed its focus on one of the most important property developers from the previous boom: Reyal Urbis.

The real estate company emerged from the fusion between the construction company Reyal, owned by Rafael Santamaría, and Urbis, the real estate arm of Banesto, and it filed for creditor bankruptcy in 2013. With a liability of €4,660 million and negative own funds of €3,449 million, the company is negotiating against the clock to obtain support for its proposed agreement, which will allow it to avoid liquidation. The deadline to secure the backing of at least 75% of the creditor mass expires on 31 May.

In this process, which affects large banks such as Santander, Sareb (which is owed €1,000 million) and the Tax Authorities (which are owed more than €400 million), a new player has emerged: the fund Värde Partners. According to sources close to the operation, the fund has acquired a significant amount of Reyal’s debt, to place itself amongst the real estate company’s largest creditors. (…).

The purchase of this debt, which is backed by mortgage guarantees, allows Värde to have rights of Reyal’s real estate portfolio that, according to the latest appraisal, has a market value of €1,170 million. Of that figure, €863 million corresponds to land and finished assets (it owns 217 homes in stock).

After four years of bankruptcy and more than five years of losses, Reyal Urbis’ main asset is its land portfolio. The company owns plots of land spread across 30 cities, the majority of which is buildable (planning permission has been granted for it). This type of asset fits perfectly with the US fund’s investment profile, which owns two of the most active property developers in the country at the moment: Vía Célere and Aelca. (…).

Proposal

Reyal Urbis is currently proposing a series of discounts to the outstanding debt that it owes (…), but its creditors are not convinced by the high level of those discounts and according to sources close to the process, they are currently leaning towards rejecting the proposal, which would mean that company would end up filing for liquidation. (…).

However, the company’s entry into liquidation would not put a brake on Värde’s plans, given that it could acquire the assets that it is interested in a subsequent process. If Reyal does not obtain the support of its creditors, it will follow in the wake of its former competitor Martinsa Fadesa, which is in the process of liquidation and which is selling off its assets through periodic auctions.

During the first quarter of 2017, Reyal Urbis recorded revenues of €8.9 million, of which €45,000 came from its residential department (which, in turn, generated expenses of €421,000). These revenues are 2% higher than those obtained during the same period in 2016. During 2017, Reyal has so far recorded losses of €34.35 million. Since 2013, when the company filed for bankruptcy, it has accumulated losses amounting to €1,847 million.

Original story: Expansión (by Rocío Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Martinsa’s Creditors Put 45 New Assets Up For Sale

30 April 2017 – Expansión

A year and a half after its liquidation was approved, the property developer Martinsa Fadesa is still working on the process, with the aim of returning to its creditors at least a small part of the more than €6,000 million that the company owed when it filed for bankruptcy.

To that end, the heads of the process have launched several auctions of the assets that Martinsa still owns, including homes in some of its macro-developments and plots of land for development, amongst others.

The latest initiative in this sense has been the creation of a special lot containing 45 assets, including finished homes, others under construction and a plot of land for development.

Highlights include a 2-bedroom home in Ayamonte (Huelva), measuring 95 m2, that has a terrace, private garden and parking space, which has an asking price of €108,290.

In Paterna (Valencia), Martinsa is selling homes and parking spaces alike at its Mas del Rosari development. For example, the real estate company is selling a social housing flat, measuring 90 m2, for a minimum price of €120,020.

This lot, the seventh to be created by the liquidators of the real estate company, also includes buildable land in El Saboyal de San Mateo de Gállego (Zaragoza), measuring almost 10,000 m2 and with a buildability of approximately 7,020 m2 for the construction of 39 semi-detached family homes. The initial price of the plot for auction amounts to €2.3 million.

To carry out the sale of these and other assets, those responsible for the liquidation, have created a website (martinsafadesaliquidacion.es), through which bids can be made for the real estate company’s plots of land, homes, storerooms and parking spaces. In the case of this latest batch, the deadline for participating is 8 May.

According to the latest data presented by Martinsa Fadesa, at the end of 2014 (the company formally requested to file for liquidation in March 2015), the hole in its balance sheet amounted to €4,603 million. Specifically, it owned assets worth €2,392 million to cover total liabilities of €6,995 million, of which €3,200 million corresponded to debt with financial institutions.

In December 2014, the real estate company chaired by its largest shareholder, Fernando Martín, presented a new proposal for its repayments after failing to fulfil the schedule set out in its first plan, approved in 2011, and which allowed it to emerge from the largest creditor bankruptcy ever seen in Spain. Then, Martinsa Fadesa had been negotiating with its financial creditors, including Sareb, CaixaBank, Popular and Abanca, for more than a year regarding a repayment plan for the more than €6,600 million that it owed.

Original story: Expansión (by Rocío Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Martinsa Fadesa Puts 300 RE Assets Up For Auction

6 February 2017 – Expansión

The bankruptcy administrators of Martinsa Fadesa are getting ready to initiate successive notarial auctions of various real estate assets owned by the firm, as well as of several of the companies in the Group that have filed for liquidation.

These auctions will be carried out through the auction portal of the Official State Gazette (BOE), according to information provided by the current managers.

To this end, the administrators of the company will publish information sheets about the assets to be auctioned, with the aim of providing as much information as possible to users about the assets in question.

According to sources close to the process, the liquidation of Martinsa Fadesa may be completed in 2017 once the creditors have been returned “the present value” of the assets that they financed.

The jewels in Martinsa Fadesa’s crown included a group of buildings and plots of land in Paris, as well as assets located in Poland and Morocco.

The liquidation of the company, which was one of the largest real estate companies in the country during the boom years, involved the sale of assets at discounts of around 30% on their respective book values.

It also included the auctioning off of assets and the assignation of unsold assets to creditors so that they could choose whether to carry out “daciónes en pago” or sell the assets in return for cash.

The liquidation process, which was agreed in March 2015, was structured into three phases.

The first phase included the company’s most liquid assets, particularly those located in Madrid and Barcelona and along the coast.

During the second phase, the bankruptcy administrators put mortgaged assets on the market, whose revenues were used to repay those mortgages.

The third phase was orientated towards the repayment of debt lent by the ordinary creditors with assets not sold during the first phase. Once completed, the other assets were assigned to the creditors that so desired them through a notarial procedure.

The real estate company’s liquidation process began before the summer of 2015, after the ruling was issued by the judge in Mercantil Court number 1 in La Coruña.

And, even through on 11 March 2011, an agreement was approved for Martinsa to repay debt amounting to €7,200 million over a 10 year period, without any discounts, the company’s breaches and liquidity shortages forced it to file for liquidation.

Original story: Expansión 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Martinsa Puts New Batch Of Assets Up For Sale For €57M

4 January 2017 – Expansión

Martinsa Fadesa’s bankruptcy administrators have put a batch of land, homes and work in progress developments up for sale for a combined price of €56.7 million.

The assets put on the market as part of the liquidation of the real estate company are located in: Murcia, Valencia, Fuerteventura, Madrid, Toledo, Huelva, Las Palmas and Málaga, according to official data.

The largest asset, which has been put up for sale for €32 million, corresponds to the Atalaya Dorada plot of land, located in the municipality of La Oliva, just a few kilometres away from the Dunas de Corralejo Natural Park, in the north of the island of Fuerteventura.

The plot may house homes, a golf course, and buildings for hotel and tertiary use.

The current administrators of the company have also put up for a sale another plot of land in the Canary Islands, located in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, for €21.4 million.

The property is located in Barrio de Guanarteme, around 100m from Playa de Las Canteras and next to its future extension.

Meanwhile, the company has put a property near the Guadalhorce reservoir in Antequera (Málaga) up for sale for €2.2 million.

The property, which may be used for recreational and agricultural activity, has a surface area of approximately 334 hectares and borders the Guadalhorce Reservoir and the Torcal de Antequera.

In addition, the bankruptcy administrators of the former real estate company have put two homes in Molina De Segura (Murcia)up for sale, as well as two homes under construction in La Pobla De Vallbona (Valencia), six bungalow type townhouses in the municipality of La Oliva (Fuerteventura), and a 168m2 home and parking space in Madrid.

A terraced home in Illescas (Toledo) has also been put on the market, along with a terraced house in Ayamonte (Huelva) and three plots of land in La Pobla De Vallbona (Valencia).

Interested investors are invited to submit their offers by 20 January.

On 11 March 2011, an agreement was approved for Martinsa to pay €7,200 million of debt over a 10-year period without any discounts. Nevertheless, the company’s breaches and lack of liquidity forced it to file for liquidation in 2015.

Martinsa Fadesa’s bankruptcy administration team comprises Antonia Magdaleno, Ángel Martín Torres, as representative of KPMG Auditores –appointed by the CNMV-, and Antonio Moreno Rodríguez, as representative of the creditor Bankinter.

The liquidation of Martinsa Fadesa may be completed in 2017 and once the creditors have been returned the “present value” of the assets that they financed, according to sources close to the process.

Original story: Expansión

Translation: Carmel Drake