Masaveu Sells Land in the Port of Vigo for €2.8M

31 January 2019 – La Nueva España

Cementos Tudela Veguín, which forms part of the Asturian business group Masaveu, has obtained almost €2.8 million from the sale of land in the Port of Vigo. The plot measures 19,000 m2, was barely being used and is located in Rande.

Cementos Tudela Veguín, which has several warehouses in the Port of Vigo, also owned an area of land that was of interest to the Port authority to improve access and expand the area reserved for logistics. The directors of the Port of Vigo learned of the details of the land purchase operation last Friday, which was closed for €2,783,000, an amount that has already been transferred to the cement producer company.

The Masaveu family is considered to be the richest in Asturias and is amongst the wealthiest in all of Spain. Their wealth is estimated to amount to around €2.1 billion, according to a new list compiled by El Mundo, which analyses the largest 200 fortunes. The Masaveu family occupies 16th position in the ranking, which is led by the President of Inditex, Amancio Ortega, with assets worth €50.4 billion. He is followed by Rafael del Pino from Ferrovial, and Juan Roig from Mercadona (…).

Original story: La Nueva España (by A.O. & J.L.S)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Dadelos to Build a Logistics Platform in Sagunto with an Investment of €5M

16 January 2019 – Eje Prime

Dadelos is launching itself into the logistics sector in Valencia. The Valencian family group is going to build a logistics platform in Sagunto with an investment of €5 million.

The plot, which has a buildability of 13,200 m2, is located on the large format Camí la Mar I industrial and logistics park, very close to the Port of Sagunto and Parc Sagunt, an area where companies such as Inditex and Mercadona are already present.

Dadelos is going to carry out the construction of the project without having closed the future final user of the property in advance, as reported by the company in a statement. Similarly, the group stated that this operation forms part of its current expansion and diversification policy.

The new property, which will be twelve metres tall, will also have an area for office use. To carry out the transaction, Dadelos has been advised by Olivares Consultores, which confirmed that it is a strategic operation “at a time of strong growth and high demand for spaces by logistics companies in the area”.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Mercadona Buys 7,000m2 of Land in La Montañeta (Gran Canaria) for an Efficient Supermarket

11 January 2019 – La Provincia

The company Mercadona is going to build its second supermarket in the town of Ingenio, in La Montañeta, following the purchase of three warehouses, constructed in 1950, and a plot of land from Agrícola Bonny. The plot has a total surface area of 6,840 m2, with a current constructed surface area of 3,753 m2. It is located between Calle Juliano Bonny Gómez and Calle Sagasta (…).

Sources at the company confirmed yesterday (…) that plans for the creation of a new efficient store have recently been submitted to the Town Hall of Ingenio (…) which will be the second of its kind in Gran Canaria, after the inauguration on 17 December of the first one in the Melenara business park (Las Rubiesas), in the municipality of Telde, with a total surface area of 5,163 m2 (…).

These same sources did not reveal information regarding how much is going to be invested in the new supermarket in Ingenio, or when the construction work will begin (…).

Mercadona has 86 stores in the Canary islands and 34 in Gran Canaria.

Original story: La Provincia (by Marcos Álvarez Morice)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Unifersa Buys a 42,000m2 Industrial Plot in A Coruña

4 January 2019 – Eje Prime

Unifersa is expanding its warehouse. The Galician company, which is dedicated to the wholesale of industrial supplies and professional hardware, has acquired a plot of land measuring 42,000 m2 in A Coruña to expand its facilities.

The company will initially invest €10 million in the new site located in A Larancha, which will replace the headquarters that the firm has in Fene and which occupies 10,000 m2. The physical growth of the firm thus accompanies the development of the business, whose turnover exceeds €20 million.

If the forecasts from the consulting firm Savills Aguirre Newman are confirmed, the logistics market will have closed 2018 with an investment of €1.2 billion, 42% higher than the result for the previous year. That figure is accompanied by new demands from companies in the sector, which are looking for centres with a 100% logistics profile, as well as trying to find spaces with potential for return.

Nevertheless, the progression of the Spanish logistics sector has its response in e-commerce, which has boosted the sector to make 2018 one of its best years. E-commerce is the main factor responsible for the good performance of the business, which firms such as Airbus, Mercadona and Amazon have joined with new centres.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Mercadona Buys Land in Barcelona to Open its Second Warehouse for e-Commerce

20 November 2018 – Eje Prime

Mercadona is doubling its commitment to e-commerce in Barcelona. The Valencian supermarket chain has purchased a plot of land measuring 25,668 m2 in the municipality of Ripollet, where it is going to build a logistics platform to support its online business.

This new hive, which is what the group calls this new type of asset that it is promoting, will measure 14,650 m2 and will be the second establishment that the company has launched in Barcelona, after the premises it occupied in the Zona Franca, owned by Goodman, which is expected to be operational by 2020.

In Valencia, Mercadona already has a first warehouse specialising in online commerce. It is a platform with a surface area of 13,000 m2, which was inaugurated in May. The company led by Juan Roig is already looking for new locations in other parts of the country, primarily, in Madrid.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Ores Socimi Acquires 3 Commercial Assets for €19.7M

25 October 2018 – Idealista

Ores Socimi has circumvented some of the operations that it was studying and has leapt into action. The Socimi owned by Bankinter and the Portuguese real estate company Sonae Sierra has acquired three commercial assets, occupied by the supermarkets Mercadona and Día, and the home decor store Conforama, for €19.7 million. The purchases have been carried out in Madrid and Santander.

In Madrid, Ores has purchased an asset occupied by Mercadona, located in the town of Humanes, which has a retail surface area of 2,334 m2. That transaction was carried out for €4.1 million.

Ores has also purchased a supermarket in Getafe, which is leased to and operated by the company Día. That asset has a total surface area of 1,956 m2 and the amount of the operation was €3 million. In Santander, meanwhile, the company has invested €12.6 million in an asset operated by Conforama and with a surface area of 8,000 m2.

These acquisitions form part of a new period of purchases by Ores, which has set itself the objective of investing €30 million, as revealed by Idealista News.

In this way, Ores is continuing to grow its portfolio, which comprises 30 assets and has a combined market value of more than €328 million and a gross annual income of €19.4 million.

Ores is aimed at private banking clients. Although its portfolio of assets is small, for the time being, the Socimi made its debut on the stock market with the objective of investing €400 million in retail premises on high streets, as well as supermarkets, retail parks (up by 20,000 m2), bank branches and singular assets with long-lasting leases and solvent tenants.

Bankinter and Sonae Sierra launched their real estate vehicle in record time. On 15 December last year, the two groups constituted the company and, within just two months, they carried out the process to create the vehicle, raised sufficient capital to get it going and completed its stock market debut.

Original story: Idealista (by Custodio Pareja)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Forcadell: 486,946 m2 of Logistics Space Leased in Cataluña in First 9 Months

10 October 2018 – Eje Prime

The Catalan logistics sector is seeing its figures soar. With three months still to go before the end of the year, the industrial segment of the real estate sector has already exceeded the total volume of space leased in all of 2017, with 486,946 m2 leased during the first nine months of 2018, according to data from the real estate consultancy Forcadell.

The report from the Catalan consultant points out that during the third quarter of 2018, 99,557 m2 of logistics space was leased, up by 28% YoY. That figure means that the leasing volume to date exceeds the figure recorded by Forcadell at the end of last year (459,451 m2).

The second ring of Barcelona is leading the increase in the Catalan logistics sector, accounting for 47% of the operations signed during the third quarter.  In total, seven operations were registered in this area between June and September, with 50,341 m2 of industrial land leased.

The second ring was followed by the first ring, which accounted for 40% of operations and a total leasing volume of 43,216 m2. The third, with some plots located in the province of Tarragona, accounted for 13% of the transactions in this market in Cataluña.

The Director of Industrial and Logistics at Forcadell, Gerard Plana, said that “new construction projects are continuing to offset the lack of available supply”. Seven of the fifteen operations that were completed during the third quarter in Cataluña involved new build or turnkey assets.

In terms of the largest operations signed during that period, they included Henkel’s new 24,000 m2 warehouse in Montornès del Vallès and the 10,520 m2 warehouse that Mercadona leased from Goodman in Barcelona’s Zona Franca area.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Logistics: Real Estate’s Ugly Duckling Sees its Investment Figures Soar

30 September 2018 – El Confidencial

It has always been the ugly duckling of the real estate sector. Nevertheless, the boom in e-commerce, the positive evolution of consumption and of the economy, in general, and real estate in particular, has triggered investment in these types of assets. For more than a year now, the sector has been starring in some of the most high-profile operations in the market, both at the corporate level, as well as in terms of the sale of portfolios and assets, attracting money from large international funds, as well as from domestic ones.

The data speaks for itself. Investment in logistics during the third quarter of 2018 – including plots of land – amounted to €450 million, equivalent to four times more than during the second quarter and 436% more than the figure registered during the same period a year earlier. That is according to data from the consultancy firm JLL, which shows that investment amounted to €872 million between January and September, 53% more the volume accumulated during the same period in 2017.

Moreover, the firm’s forecasts for the final stretch of the year for this sector are optimistic. “We expect the total volume to amount to €1.2 billion by the end of the year, 20% more than we expected last quarter, due to the good results and the fact that strong investor appetite is still alive”, said Borja Ortega, Director of Capital Markets at JLL.

“The logistics market is the absolute star of the real estate investment market in Spain. Investors see the potential associated with a market that has been growing for years”, says Ortega. Why? Its own fundamentals, the lack of product for investing in other segments such as offices and retail or the creation and consolidation of investors specialising in logistics”, he said.

In the last year and a half, the logistics sector has captured the media’s attention thanks to the completion of several very high profile operations. For example, on 25 September, Mango’s logistics platform in Barcelona was sold for €150 million. That asset, with a surface area of 181,000 m2 and owned by the Belgian investor group VG Partners since the end of 2016, was sold to the British Socimi Tritax Big Box.

It represented the largest investment in a single asset in the Spanish logistics market for the last four years since Logicor purchased some logistics facilities in Guadalajara spanning more than 320,000 m2 from Gran Europa for €133 million.

The operation also exceeded the €119 million that Blackstone paid in July to acquire the Socimi Lar’s logistics portfolio. In total, that deal involved 162,000 m2 of space spread over four logistics warehouses in Alovera (Guadalajara), one in the Juan Carlos I industrial estate of Almussafes (Valencia) and a plot for logistics development in Cheste (Valencia) spanning a further 182,000 m2.

Assets, portfolios, corporate operations

During the third quarter, there was a lot of movement in the sector such as the sale of two logistics portfolios – Hina Project with 6 warehouses and Gran Europa Portfolio with 3 warehouses – four purchases of logistics warehouses and a project comprising two plots in Cabanillas. Those transactions were accompanied by the purchase of two plots, one on the Centro —Ciudad del Transporte Industrial Estate in Guadalajara – and another in San Fernando de Henares. The latter was acquired by Merlin Properties for the construction of a logistics platform measuring 100,000 m2 (…).

All of these operations are happening in the midst of a genuine boom in e-commerce and online sales, a market in which the major online operators such as Amazon, Mercadona and Inditex have committed heavily. And for good reason, given that in 2017 alone, online sales moved more than €30 billion, according to data from the Spanish National Competition and Markets Commission (CNMC). And that figure is rising.

But the appetite of buyers is not only limited to the purchase of assets. At the corporate level, there have also been some significant transactions in recent months. A year ago, China Investment Corporation (CIC) completed the purchase of Logicor for €12.25 billion, one of the largest logistics companies in Europe and the largest owner of logistics assets in the Spanish market with a portfolio spanning more than 1 million m2 located primarily in Madrid and Barcelona. That operation became the second largest real estate purchase in history and the fourth largest by a Chinese company in Europe.

Meanwhile, P3 Spain Logistic Park, the logistics centre Socimi that the sovereign fund Singapore GIC owns in Spain, made its debut on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB) last year with eleven logistics centres that span a total surface area of 321,392 m2 and which are spread across five autonomous communities, although most are in Madrid and Castilla-La Mancha.

Even the Murcian businessman, Trinitario Casanova, through Grupo Baraka has backed the logistics sector. In February this year, he purchased a logistics-industrial use plot located in the municipality of Sant Esteve Sesrovires, in Barcelona.

A sector traditionally forgotten

“For years, the logistics sector has been one of the ‘great forgottens’ of the real estate sector. Nevertheless, today it is clearly a segment to which investors pay a lot of attention. (…). In fact, given the competitive pressure, it is the only sector where returns are continuing to fall. Prime returns at the end of the third quarter of 2018 amounted to 5.25%, making them lower than during the last upward cycle in 2006, when they amounted to 5.75%”, said Ortega.

On the other hand, unlike what has happened in other real estate sectors such as residential or offices, whose activity is concentrated in the major cities such as Madrid and Barcelona, 34% of logistics investment in the third quarter has been in Cataluña and 32% in Madrid. The rest has been concentrated in other regions such as Valencia (…).

Original story: El Confidencial (by E. Sanz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

The Port of Valencia Extends Deadline to Sell its Parcel of Parc Sagunt for €31 Million

17 August 2018

The Port Authority of Valencia has decided to extend the auction for the last large plot of industrial land available in the business centre, with 279,830 square meters, until November.

The sale of the last large plot of land in the Parc Sagunt in Valencia has been delayed. The Port Authority of Valencia has decided to extend the closing date of the auction for the land it acquired ten years ago in the Valencian business park and which it wants to sell now for at least €31 million euros.

The plot, with an area of ​​279,830 square meters, is the largest left in the complex and was scheduled to change hands on the 28th of this month, at the end of the deadline set by the subsidiary VPI, as reported by Expansión.

However, the Port of Valencia has delayed the tender until the autumn, when it will be necessary to see if the bids of the investors who had taken an interest in the property remain firm. At that point, VPI must choose between the projects that have been submitted to the auction, looking for a sale that would be in “interest of the Valencian Community.”

One of the companies that are likely to take the prize is Mercadona. The Valencian supermarket chain has already bought more than 600,000 square meters in Parc Sagunt with the purpose of developing a new macro-logistics platform in the centre. A third of the entire industrial area is already owned by the group led by Juan Roig.

The positioning of Mercadona in Sagunto has attracted other companies in the sector, as evidenced by Vostok and Inlet Seafish’s purchase of two parcels in the estate, paying 1.43 million euros and 620,000 euros, respectively.

Original Story: EjePrime

Translation: Richard Turner

 

Mercadona Invests €35 Million to Expand its Logistics Platform in Sevilla

13 August 2018

The Valencia-based supermarket chain will build a new, 36,700-square-meter warehouse on a plot of land measuring more than 88,000 square meters.

Mercadona is expanding its logistics platform in Sevilla. The Valencia-based supermarket chain will invest 35 million euros in the construction of a new, 36,700-square-meter warehouse in Huévar del Aljarafe, according to the company.

The entire plot covers more than 88,000 square meters of surface area. After several phases, it is expected that construction will be completed in 2021. The platform will serve for the storage, preparation and shipment of fresh products that will be marketed by the chain owned by Juan Roig.

The new facility will be added to the ones already owned by Mercadona in Huévar, where the group has more than 83,000 square meters of surface area. The operation in the city of Sevilla will join others that the company has been adding in the last year to improve and expand its logistics network.

A month ago, Mercadona announced that it would rent a 10,500 square meter warehouse in the Barcelona free zone to manage just online orders, as part of its process of adapting to e-commerce.

Also, in its hometown, Valencia, the group bought the largest parcel of the Parc Sagunt industrial estate in the autumn, a plot measuring 358,270 square meters, and this winter announced an investment of eighty million euros to expand its technology centre. Mercadona invested more than one billion euros in real estate just in 2017, as reported by EjePrime.

Original Story: EjePrime

Translation: Richard Turner