Tag: Meridia Capital

Colau Suspends 35 Hotel Projects In Barcelona

26 October 2015 – Expansión

On Friday, the Town Hall of Barcelona revealed the final impact of the hotel moratorium in the Catalan capital. The mayoress Ada Colua’s star initiative has left 35 projects up in the air, although it will not effect some of the most iconic projects, such as the hotel that Amancio Ortega is planning to build in Plaza Catalunya or the project proposed by Meridia Capital for the former Henkel headquarters.

The future of the 35 projects now depends on the special urban plan for tourist accommodation (Peuat or ‘plan especial urbanístico de alojamiento turístico’), the regulatory framework that governs the (tourism) sector in the city. The town hall expects to approve the framework in March, just before the suspension of the licences expires. “We still have time to put in order and regulate tourism”, said the fourth deputy mayoress, Janet Sanz, at a press conference.

The 35 projects affected include 30 hotels, three youth hostels and two halls of residence. Some of the most well known projects include the property that the Hotusa group, owned by Amancio López, plans to build on Avenida Vilanova (close to the Arc del Triomf) and the building that Meliá wants to convert on Calle Casp.

During the press conference, the councillor revealed that 51 projects have run their course unaffected by the moratorium, since they were approved when the previous government was in office, i.e. when CiU led the Town Hall. Those 51 projects include 36 licences, 9 obtained due to non-opposition and 6 that have urban use certificates (a document that allows a licence to be requested during a six-month period).

The opposition, led by CiU, criticised Colau’s policy and accused her of making a lot of fuss and then taking little action. They asked the mayoress to show “rigour and seriousness”.

Original story: Expansión (by Gabriel Trindade)

Translation: Carmel Drake

JLL: Shopping Centre Investment Reaches Record High

7 October 2015 – Cinco Días

Real estate investment in the retail sector is breaking records, reaching levels above even those seen before the crisis. Total investment volumes amounted to €2,588 million during the first nine months of the year, an increase of 42% with respect to the same period last year, according to data from the real estate consultancy JLL.

The worst year of the crisis for this segment was 2011, when investors spent just €500 million in Spain during the whole year. At the other end of the spectrum, 2007 was the best year in terms of transaction volumes, which totalled almost €4,000 million.

During the last three quarters, 486 assets have been acquired in total through 46 operations, the majority of which have involved the purchase of shopping centres and prime retail parks (i.e. the largest assets in the best locations).

The star product for investors, by transaction volume, are shopping centres, which account for 52% of all sales. After these purchases, are their interest in individual shops (23%).

In Q3, the most noteworthy operations included the acquisitions made by Grupo Lar, which recently purchased the MegaPark de Barakaldo shopping centre for €170 million, in an operation that was advised by JLL, as well as the El Rosal shopping centre for €87.5 million. In addition, the Rivas Futura shopping centre was sold to Credit Suisse for €52 million and the Connecta Córdoba park was sold to MDSR Investments for €15.3 million.

Another highlight was the transactions involving two supermarket portfolios: the Caprabo Blue Box portfolio, which was sold to Meridia Capital for €97 million; and a group of Carrefour and Día supermarkets, which were purchased by Kennedy Wilson for €88 million.

Original story: Cinco Días (by A.S.)

Translation: Carmel Drake

GreenOak Acquires 4 Office Buildings In Madrid’s Avalon Business Park

24 August 2015 – Mis Oficinas

The US fund GreenOak has purchased four office buildings from Banco Santander. The offices, which are located on Calle Santa Leonor in the Avalon Business Park (Madrid), have a combined surface area of 21,170 m2 and 353 parking spaces. In May, Meridia Capital purchased the other five buildings that make up the park (spanning 25,785 m2 and with 423 parking spaces) from the Naropa family office.

The main tenants of these offices include Arcelor, Konecta and Tatacs. All three lease more than 1,000 m2 of office space each.

GreenOak, founded in 2010, has a portfolio of assets under management worth $5,400 million.

Original story: Mis Oficinas

Translation: Carmel Drake

Meridia Buys ‘Miramadrid’ Shopping Centre For €12.5M

17 July 2015 – Expansión

The real estate fund Meridia Capital, which is controlled by the former Vice-President of Barcelona FCB, Javier Faus, and the former director of Sareb, Juan Barba, has closed the purchase of the Miramadrid shopping centre, located in the town of Paracuellos del Jarama (Madrid).

Meridia has paid the developer Hercesa (now called HI Real Estate) €12.5 million for the property, which has a surface area of 7,148 m2; that represents a yield of 8%. (…).

The shopping centre, which opened in August 2009, has an occupancy rate of 97% and its tenants include Mercadona, Burger King and Telepizza. Meridia has been advised on the transaction by Knight Frank, Dokei and Roca Junyent, whilst The Carlton Group has advised Hercesa.

With this transaction, the Spanish fund continues its high level of investment activity, which has resulted in the purchase of real estate assets worth more than €500 million in the last 10 months, including the purchase of 11 GE offices for €100 million.

Original story: Expansión (by Rocío Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

International Funds And Socimis Hire First-Rate Executives

4 May 2015 – Expansión

Director appointments in Spain / Large international investors and Socimis have been recruiting senior Spanish executives to design their strategies in the country and identify real estate opportunities.

Large overseas investors are hiring first-rate advisors to lead the businesses that they have acquired in Spain. Over the last six months, funds such as Cerberus, Apollo and Lone Star have hired former directors of Ibex companies to support them (execute) their strategies in Spain.

Some of the Spanish Socimis have also hired first-rate executives, including Uro Property and the listed real estate company Hispania, owned by Azora.

Through these appointments, investors are taking the third step in a process to strengthen their strategies to conquer the Spanish real estate sector. To begin with, they put certain Spanish-speaking executives in charge of entering the market. Such was the case of Andrés Rubio (Apollo), Juan Pepa (Lone Star) and Michael Abel (TPG).

The next step was the acquisition of real estate platforms, such as Altamira, purchased by Apollo; Bankia Habitat – now Haya Real Estate – acquired by Cerberus; and Neinor, which was awarded by Kutxabank to Lone Star.

Following these purchases, the funds have sought advice from top executives. “Some of the funds’ foreign directors have made successful acquisitions, but they now need highly skilled, top-level, local professionals to implement their business plans”, says Patricio Palomar, Director of Alternative Investment at CBRE.

“The hardest thing in the real estate sector is finding and accessing opportunities, but these experienced professionals have the skills to achieve that”, adds Carlos Ruiz-Garma, Director of Business Development at Aguirre Newman.

New hires

The most active fund in terms of new recruits has been Cerberus, which has hired two senior bankers for its Spanish subsidiaries in the last few months. Franciso Luzón, former board member and Vice President at Santander, is now a board member at Haya Real Estate, the real estate company that inherited Bankia Habitat’s business; and Manuel González Cid, the former Finance Director at BBVA, has joined the board of directors at Gescobro, the firm that specialises in debt collection.

Another big name signing was that of Oscar Fanjul, as a board member of Altamira, the real estate company owned by Apollo. Fanjul is Vice President at Omega Capital and used to be the Chairman of Repsol.

The fund Lone Star has also drawn on the market for former directors of listed companies to strengthen its strategy. This investor, which purchased Kutxabank’s property developer for €930 million at the end of last year, has hired Juan Velayos to lead the project; he used to be a Partner at PwC and who was the CEO of Renta Corporación until 2011. Lone Star will reveal its strategy for Neinor over the next few weeks.

In the face of all of these new signings, one of the largest funds to show its commitment to Spain, TPG – which is the majority shareholder in Servihabitat – substituted the former banker Rodrigo Rato last April.

Socimis

The Socimis, (many of) which are in turn owned by international investors, are also committed to hiring experienced directors. In this sense, the real estate manager Azora, which controls Hispania, hired Juan María Nin as a board member at the end of last year; until June 2014, he was the CEO of CaixaBank.

The Socimi Uro Property has also followed in the same footsteps; Uro owns some of Santander’s (branch) network and it has appointed Carlos Martínez Campos as its Chairman; he was formerly the Chairman of Barclays España until its sale to CaixaBank. The banker also used to chair Prosegur.

In addition to the signings of former directors of Ibex companies, the opportunistic funds have also hired at least a dozen other executives in recent months. For example, Gonzalo Gómez Navarro, from the Empark Group, has joined Altamira; and the former directors of Sareb, Walter de Luna and Juan Barba, joined Acciona Inmobiliaria and Meridia Capital, respectively.

Original story: Expansión (by Jorge Zuloaga)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Who Are The New Property Owners?

20 April 2015 – Expansión

Plans / International funds and Socimis are the main players in the sector

Apollo, Blackstone, Cerberus, HIG, Hispania, Intu, Lone Star, Merlin and Oaktree have gone from being virtually unknown names to being the key players in the Spanish property market (in a matter of months).

Over the last year and a half, large international funds have been investing hundreds of millions of euros in the purchase of property in Spain, both directly as well as through listed real estate investment companies (Socimis).

Värde, Apollo and Lone Star all burst into the market by purchasing real estate platforms from financial institutions. The latter has said that it wants to become the largest land developer in Spain and to that end, it is considering purchasing not only portfolios of land but also small and medium-sized (land) developers. Lone Star has already purchased the real estate arm Neinor from Kutxabank for €930 million, as well as Eurohypo’s loans in Spain for a further €3,500 million.

HIG and Castlelake are looking to buy land in Spain too.

Another investor that is backing Spain with more strength than ever is Blackstone. The largest fund manager in the world has purchased 1,860 homes for rent, as well as a group of office buildings, located in Madrid and Barcelona. One of the players that is most interested in the office market is the Spanish fund Meridia Capital, led by the former Sareb (director) Juan Barba; it has purchased a portfolio of office buildings from General Electric. It is competing against IBA Capital – the French manager has created a Socimi, which has not yet been listed, with headquarters and commercial buildings.

Along with these offices, the other assets that are sparking the most interest amongst investors are shopping centres. Green Oak has already invested €160 million together with Baupost on the acquisition of 6 properties from Vastned. The British group Intu wants to become the leading player in this segment in Spain and to that end, it paid €451 million for Puerto Venecia. Oaktree spent €100 million on Gran Vía de Vigo.

Other important players in this new era for the real estate sector are Socimis. Axia RE, Hispania, Lar España and Merlin have invested almost €3,000 million in assets, which include hotels, offices, logistics centres and warehouses. This last type of asset is attracting considerable interest. The fund Colony has just formed a partnership with the Spanish company Neinver to purchase 16 logistics warehouses.

Finally, in the hotel segment, Cerberus and Orion have purchased Sotogrande, the real estate subsidiary of NH for €225 million.

Original story: Expansión (by R. Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Meridia Acquires 11 Office Buildings For €100M

27 March 2015 – Cinco Días

Meridia Capital has purchased eleven office buildings in Madrid and Barcelona from GE Capital Real Estate for €100 million. Together the buildings have a total surface area of 84,000 square metres.

Seven of the assets acquired are located in Barcelona and the other four are in Madrid; all of them are located in the main business areas of the two cities.

The portfolio acquired in Barcelona includes the Meridian building, an 18-floor office block measuring 24,000 square metres.

Specifically, the buildings in Madrid are located on Calle Alcalá, 518 and Calle Gobelas, 35-49, according to Cushman & Wakefield, the real estate consultant that has advised the sale, which was signed on Thursday.

The properties acquired in Barcelona are located in the 22@ district (on Joan d’Àustria, 39-47; Paseo Garcia Faria, 49-51; and Calle Josep Ferrater i Mora, 2-4), Avenida Rio de Janeiro, 56-66, Via Layetana, 4, Calle Girona, 2 and Calle Pare Rodés de Sabadell, 26.

In a statement, the CEO of the real estate company Meridia Capital, Juan Barba, highlighted that the transaction, the fourth signed by its fund “Ibérica Fondo Inmobiliario Meridia” in Spain represents “a significant step forward” because it “significantly” increases its exposure to the office segment.

For his part, the founder and CEO of Meridia Capital, Javier Faus (pictured above), reiterated the firm’s commitment to continue investing in the Spanish real estate sector, which he considers “offers very exciting opportunities”.

Original story: Cinco Días

Translation: Carmel Drake