Tag: Moody´s

Moody’s Confirms Merlin’s Investment Grade Rating with Possible Revisions

The ratings agency has confirmed Merlin’s Baa2 ‘investment grade’ rating, but has assigned it a negative outlook, due to its exposure to shopping centres.

The ratings agency Moody’s has confirmed the investment grade (‘Baa2’) rating of the Spanish Socimi Merlin Properties two months after the outbreak of the coronavirus crisis in Spain. However, Moody’s has assigned the company a “negative outlook”, whereby leaving the door open for possible revisions, given the Socimi’s exposure to the shopping centre segment, the properties, together with hotels, most affected by the crisis .

The ratings agency also points to the stronger impact that Covid is having in Spain compared to other European countries and, specifically, in the real estate sector. Regarding commercial assets, Moody’s believes that they will be affected by a decrease in investment and occupancy ratios. However, the ratings agency considers that Merlin will be capable of facing the challenges brought by operating restrictions and lower income.

Moody’s Warns of an Increase in Defaulted Payments in Europe

The depreciation in house prices will put borrowers and their portfolios at risk, and so the volume of doubtful and non-performing loans may increase.

Unsecured loans such as unpaid credit card balances and unsecured consumer loans will be more sensitive to rising unemployment and household debt in Europe as a result of the coronavirus outbreak, according to a report released today by Moody’s.

Consumers who are under financial stress after the Covid-19 crisis are more likely to suspend payments on those loans, said the agency. It also considers that recoveries after default are likely to be low, given the lack of collateral. “The degree of weakening in the performance of the agreement will depend on the sharpness and duration of the recession and the exposure of the transactions to borrowers with a higher probability of interrupted income, such as self-employed workers and temporary contractors,” explains Rodrigo Conde, analyst at Moody’s.

Moody’s: The Average LTV on Residential Mortgages Amounted to 64.6% in Q1 2019

30 May 2019 – El Diario

According to the latest data from INE, more and more people are taking out a mortgage to buy a home in Spain. 30,716 mortgage contracts were signed in March, up by 15.8% YoY.

Many buyers are attracted by rising house prices (investment growth), which the ratings agency Moody’s considers is something “positive”. However, with personal savings rates in freefall, banks are having to lend more than ever to enable families to afford their homes.

Specifically, the percentage that the loan granted represents over the appraisal value of the property (LTV) amounted to 66.5% in Q4 2018, its highest figure ever. That figure moderated slightly to 64.6% in Q1 2019 but many families are now asking to borrow 65%-70% of the value of their homes, which means a greater risk for banks and a higher probability of defaulted payments.

According to Moody’s, whilst a portfolio with an average LTV of more than 80% has a default rate of more than 6%, a portfolio with an average LTV of less than 60% has a default rate of 1%.

Nevertheless, although some banks are now lending mortgages with LTVs of 100% in certain cases, the percentage of loans with LTVs of more than 80% is lower than it was before the crisis. Such mortgages currently account for 13.1% of the total compared with 17% in 2006.

Moreover, according to Moody’s, mortgage borrowers are better off today than they were at the outbreak of the crisis as they are in a better position to afford interest rate rises and other changes in the market thanks to the strict criteria that the financial entities have applied when granting loans in recent years.

Original story: El Diario (by Marina Estévez Torreblanca)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Urban Hubs: The Future Pillars of the Last Mile are Seducing the Real Estate Sector

22 October 2018 – Eje Prime

Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Prologis and Amazon have started to invest in urban hubs. The future pillars of e-commerce logistics are still in an embryonic phase, but the large real estate investors have started to track these types of assets, whereby sparking interest from other players. Forgotten old warehouses and factories (and even office buildings) in inner cities are now seducing these giants, which regard them as the new urban nuclei for handling same-day deliveries, and even, same-hour deliveries, which are demanded by e-commerce nowadays. Spanish investors are already beginning to study opening logistics centres in the heart of Madrid and Barcelona.

The Spanish market is still at the tail of the e-commerce market in Europe, where it represents just 4% of all retail sales, compared with 12% in the United Kingdom and 16% in the United States, according to the ratings agency Moody’s. Nevertheless, experts forecast that e-commerce in Spain, and on the rest of the planet, will continue to make inroads to ultimately account for one third of all retail sales.

This drastic transformation of retail is challenging for the traditional logistics system, comprising regional distribution platforms located away from urban centres that supply different local warehouses to delivery to different businesses. The new system is supported by an e-fulfilment centre (a fully automated platform), which directly supplies several urban hubs located inside cities, which make deliveries to consumers (…).

Blackstone, one of the largest real estate investors in the world, has invested around €4 million in small urban warehouses in Europe since the beginning of 2018. Unlike large warehouses on the outskirts of cities, urban hubs are smaller facilities with a lower risk in terms of their development.

The sovereign Singapore fund, GIC, has also entered the segment. The investment group even has a specific division for building logistics facilities on urban land (…).

Nevertheless, they are difficult assets to find and mould for their new function. On the one hand, because cities have grown and transformed over the last few decades, with housing replacing former industrial land (…). On the other hand, because, these facilities need to be rethought for the constant entry and exit of goods.

The future urban hubs will be built on land still classified as industrial inside cities, which is much cheaper than residential. And, given the difficulty of expanding width-wise due to the lack of land, the plans involve constructing properties with various storeys. In large cities in Asia, where land prices are very high, multi-storey warehouses are already typical.

In addition to industrial land, another option for urban hubs is to use office buildings. To the extent that new business areas in new parts of cities are created, so empty and underused spaces are being left in city centres.

Currently, new technology-based distribution companies, such as Paack and Stuart, are shaking up the market, by accelerating e-commerce deliveries using logarithmic calculations. Meanwhile, traditional express transport companies, such as Seur and MRW, amongst others, have also started to adapt to expedite last mile deliveries with small warehouses in the centre of large cities.

Small signs in Spain

Sources in the real estate sector indicate that some investors specialising in retail have started to study the implementation of these types of logistics structure to complement the flagship stores in the centre of Madrid. Specifically, some players have started to analyse the option of installing urban hubs in office buildings.

In Barcelona, we have already seen one case along those lines. In 2016, Amazon opened a warehouse in the former headquarters of the publishing house Gustavo Gili, on Calle Rosselló in the El Eixample neighbourhood, to introduce its Prime Now service offering deliveries within the hour. Nevertheless, sources in the sector indicate that Amazon may have started to question the suitability of that platform since it has not managed to make the prices of the urban land profitable (…).

Aitor Martínez, Head of Industrial & Logistic are Savills Aguirre Newman, points out that in some cities, such as London and Málaga, pilot tests are being carried out regarding deliveries of the future. A common denominator in all of them are the urban hubs. In the logistics of the future, these new logistical nuclei, will not only speed up deliveries, but they will also respond to other challenges in the sector, such as the introduction of greater restrictions over the entry of vehicles into city centres and the prohibition of polluting vehicles from the roads (…).

Original story: Eje Prime (by S. Riera & P. Riaño)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Bankia Begins its Spring Cleaning in Earnest, Selling off Real Estate Assets

31 August 2018

The financial institution has so far lagged behind the other banks’ efforts to unload their portfolios of foreclosed real estate properties.

Since the end of 2014, after having transferred the worst of its assets to Sareb, Bankia has sold €4.2 billion defaulted loans to institutional investors. According to Moody’s, it is the banking institution which has sold off the most assets since then. However, the sales of much of the property inherited by many of Spain’s largest banks to investment funds has left Bankia behind in the clean-up process. The bank still has properties valued at €4.761 billion and another €10.809 billion euros in NPLs (developers and non-developers).

These assets account for roughly 8% of Bankia’s total assets. This percentage contrasts with BBVA, CaixaBank and Sabadell, whose sales have left their exposure at 4% or less, a level considered acceptable by the major rating agencies. They will lower their exposure to that of Bankinter’s in just a few months, which barely financed any developers during the credit boom.

Changed dynamics

BBVA sold a portfolio of 78,000 flats, stores and garages to Cerberus and €1 billion in delinquent loans to a Canadian fund this year. CaixaBank transferred its entire real estate portfolio to Lone Star -leaving out the Banco de Valencia – just holding on to its delinquent loans. Finally, Sabadell’s exposure will fall to just one billion euros of foreclosed properties.

Santander was the institution that began the change, with its sale last summer of most of the assets it inherited from Popular, within a few weeks of acquiring the bank.

Publicly, Bankia’s management has indicated that they will maintain their policy regarding sales of medium-sized portfolios (up to 500 million euros) so as not to generate losses for the bank. This way it may avoid the discounts of between 60% and 80% that the funds have been achieving when acquiring the large portfolios of real estate assets.

So far this year, Bankia sold a €290-million portfolio to Golden Tree, with two more in preparation, one worth €450 million and another €400 million. The merger with BMN added even more toxic assets to the bank’s balance sheet. 71% of the buildings are finished homes, which are more easily sold. Haya Real Estate (Cerberus) is in charge of marketing, with which the bank just renegotiated its contract after the merger with BMN. So far this year, the group has sold apartments and stores worth 309 million euros. The percentage of land in the portfolio is small, at 6.7%. “We were the first to sell portfolios. For the type of asset we have, we believe that the placement of medium-sized portfolios is what gives us the best result in terms of price, because that is where we find more interest and competition from interested buyers,” the CEO of Bankia explained.

As a result, in 2012, Bankia transferred its worst assets (in large part, delinquent loans to developers) to Sareb, the bad bank. It transferred assets worth €22.317 billion, of which €2.850 billion came from its parent BFA. For its part, BMN transferred assets valued at €5.819 billion to the public vehicle.

Sareb applied a 45% discount to the loans to developers, 63% to ongoing developments and 79.5% to land.

The flats and NPLs only generate expenses – payments of local taxes – and no income, therefore decreasing the banks’ profitability. That is why it is so important for the banks to get rid of the real estate as quickly as possible. In the case of BBVA, the bank could double its level of profitability in two years, according to Alantra. Something similar could occur with CaixaBank and Sabadell.

Bankinter’s healthy balance sheet is the reason why it has an ROE ratio (13%) that is much higher than that of its competitors.

An eventual sale of Bankia’s real estate holdings could also help boost its stock market price, to reduce the possible need for public aid, according to analysts.

The firm Keefe, Bruyette & Woods believes that Bankia will continue to have the second-worst ratio of unprofitable assets of Spain’s listed banks in 2019 and 2020, only behind Liberbank.

Santander Spain is in the middle of the group because while it cleaned up Popular, it has yet to follow through on Santander’s own, original exposure.

Original Story: ProOrbyt Expansión – R. Lander

Translation: Richard Turner

 

Cerberus Prepares for Haya’s Stock Market Debut After the Summer

9 February 2018 – Cinco Días

Metrovacesa achieved it on Tuesday, despite problems to cover supply and the nefarious stock market session that it suffered. The large Spanish property developer, which abandoned the equity market in May 2013, made its return last week. It hasn’t exactly eased the way for the upcoming debuts of Vía Célere, owned by the fund Värde, or the Socimi Testa. But it hasn’t made a total hash of it either.

In this way, the US fund Cerberus is in the process of contracting the banks that will handle the debut its Spanish real estate servicer subsidiary on the stock market. The aim is for that firm to be listed from September. The entities that are on the list of candidates have already done their calculations and are citing a valuation for the company, albeit preliminary, of around €1.2 billion. The aim is to place between 35% and 50% of Haya Real Estate’s capital at this stage. A spokesman for the company declined to comment on this information.

The company, which was created in October 2013, manages property developer loans and foreclosed real estate assets from Bankia, Sareb, Cajamar, Liberbank, BBVA and other financial institutions, worth €39.88 billion at the end of September 2017.

The process of going public is the logical next step, after Haya placed €475 million in high yield bonds in November, with ratings of B3 (Moody’s) and B- (S&P). In other words, in the junk bond range, six levels below investment grade.

The underwriters of that debt, which matures in 2022, were Santander, Bankia, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley. And they sold it with considerable success. Despite its credit rating, the firm pays an annual return of just over 5% for that liability.

Haya, led by Carlos Abad Rico (formerly of Canal + and Sogecable) offers services across the whole real estate value chain, but it is not a property developer. Rather, it manages, administers, securitises (…) and sells real estate assets such as homes and offices, but it does not own any of the properties.

Bankia Habitat was the seedling of Haya, and it has grown in line with the need by the financial sector to get rid of assets linked to property. One of Haya’s key businesses is the management of loans linked to the real estate sector. It advises on loans and guarantees, recovers debt and converts loans into foreclosed real estate assets.

The other major part of its revenues stems from the recovery and management of properties through their sale or rental. Haya employs 680 professionals and has a sales network of 2,400 brokers. The value of its property developer debt portfolio amounts to €28.7 billion and its real estate asset portfolio amounts to €11.2 billion. Moreover, Haya is going to bid to manage the assets sold by BBVA to Cerberus in November. Haya’s current shareholder acquired 80% of the BBVA’s portfolio of real estate assets, amounting to around €13 billion, for €4 billion (…)

Consolidation

The Spanish banks’ other real estate management companies are waiting for Cerberus to make the first move, according to financial sources. Haya will open the door to the stock market for them if everything goes well or it will serve to consolidate the sector, both here and in Europe.

There are three high profile players on the list. Servihabitat, which manages assets amounting to around €50 billion and which belongs to the fund Texas Pacific Group (TPG), which has held a 51% stake since September 2013, when CaixaBank sold it that percentage; the bank still holds onto the remaining 49%. Altamira, owned by Santander (15%) and the fund Apollo (85%), which also handles assets worth around €50 million in Spain. The volume managed by Solvia, owned by Sabadell, amounts to around €31 billion.

Moody’s warns that the business of Haya Real Estate, the largest company in the sector in Spain, depends on the economic performance of the company and the renewal of its current management contracts. Specifically, one of the most important, with Sareb (…), signed in 2013, is due to expire in December next year.

In terms of its strengths, the ratings agency indicates Haya’s extensive knowledge of the market and its high margins. The firm’s gross operating profit (EBITDA) during the first nine months of last year amounted to €89.8 million, with net income (the amount really invoiced by the company) of €165.8 million.

Original story: Cinco Días (by Pablo Martín Simón and Laura Salces)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Haya Real Estate Issues €475M In Guaranteed Bonds

10 November 2017 – Expansión

Debt market debut / The real estate and financial asset manager Haya Real Estate is reconfiguring its liabilities with its first bond issue

The real estate and financial asset manager Haya Real Estate, owned by the private equity fund Cerberus, has debuted on the debt market by placing €475 million in guaranteed senior bonds.

The operation has been divided into two tranches. The first, amounting to €250 million, has been placed at a fixed rate of 5.25% and the second (amounting to €225 million), has been placed at a variable rate, linked to three-month Euribor +5,125%. The floating coupon has a zero clause for Euribor in such a way that negative interest is not computed. Currently, three-year Euribor is at minimum levels of -0.32%. The firm guarantees the payment of these issues with shares in the company itself and its service contracts.

Haya Real Estate has been assigned a B- rating by S&P and a B3 rating by Moody’s, which means it is considered high yield. Market sources maintain that demand for the issue was equivalent to more than twice the amount awarded in the end. The strong investor appetite has allowed Haya Real Estate to increase the amount of the issue, given that initially, it was planning to raise €450 million. To bring the issue to a successful conclusion, the firm engaged the services of Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Bankia and Santander.

Haya Real Estate will use the funds to repay a syndicated loan, to distribute a dividend to Cerberus, to hold onto cash and to pay the commissions and fees associated with the issue. In addition, it will return money that Cerberus lent it to acquire Liberbank’s real estate asset manager, for which it paid €85 million.

“Cerberus lent us the money until we were able to close the bond issue because the syndicated loan terms were more restrictive”, explained Bárbara Zubiría, Financial Director at the company.

Original story: Expansión (by Andrés Stumpf)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Moody’s: House Prices Will Rise By 8.6% Over Next 3 Years

3 November 2017 – El Economista

An increase in the proportion of the active young population and the greater affordability of housing will boost house prices in Spain by 8.6% over the next three years, according to forecasts from the ratings agency Moody’s, which has analysed the impact of demographic trends on prices in the residential real estate sectors of seven large European markets.

In the case of Spain, the risk rating agency forecasts a rise in house prices of around 5.6% in 2018, but then limits that increase to 1.4% per annum in each of the following years, until 2020.

“Low interest rates, an improvement in economic conditions and the higher proportion of the active young population will serve to boost the housing market”, says Greg Davies, analyst at Moody’s, adding that in the last decade, the proportion of young workers has increased by 8%.

The agency indicates that the current environment of low interest rates and the economic recovery, which is reducing the still high level of youth unemployment, are contributing to the affordability of housing in Spain, although it says that salary growth is still low, which is preventing some young professionals from buying a home, something that Moody’s expects to improve over the next few years.

In this sense, the agency points out that in 2014, around 14% of full-time workers in Spain earned less than 2/3 of the median income, compared with just 7% in Italy and 9% in France.

On the other hand, Moody’s underlined that Spain has experienced a decline in the demand for new build homes, whereas there has been a lot of activity in the second-hand market. Construction activity in the country currently represents just 40% of the volume recorded in 2007, reflecting, amongst other factors, the sovereign deleveraging, including the banking sector, which has led to a substantial reduction in residential investment.

Original story: El Economista

Translation: Carmel Drake

RE Experts Warn That The Cataluña Situation Is Seriously Affecting Investment

17 October 2017 – Expansión

The Spanish Association of Real Estate Consulting Companies (ACI) says that the “serious” situation currently being experienced in Cataluña is affecting the normal evolution of the real estate market since investors are fearful.

The Spanish association of real estate consultancy firms, comprising domestic and international companies alike, such as CBRE, Aguirre Newman/Savills, Cushman & Wakefield, JLL, Knight Frank and BNP Paribas, warned yesterday of the consequences that the secessionist challenge is having in the real estate market.

Specifically, the association chaired by Ricardo Martí Fluxá said that “the serious situation” in Cataluña at the moment, is affecting the strong performance of the Spanish real estate market as a whole. Until the third quarter, the volume of investment in real estate assets was registering record figures, at €10,300 million, up by 58% compared to the same period a year earlier. “The latest developments are seriously affecting the normal operation of investment activity and the evolution of our real estate market”, they warned.

For this reason, the real estate consultancy firms have called for respect for the laws, appealing to the Generalitat to abide by the order established in the Constitution. “Our association joins the large number of companies, institutions and entities that are calling on the Generalitat to comply with the provisions of our laws and abide by the order established in the Constitution”, they said in a statement.

The warning from the large real estate consultancy firms follows a statement made just a few days ago by the CEO of Lar España, one of the five large Socimis whose shares trade on the (main) Spanish stock exchange.

The CEO of the listed company, Miguel Pereda, said that if his firm had to make an investment in Cataluña today, it would “probably” not go ahead with it, in light of the political situation regarding independence.

Meanwhile, on 5 October, the ratings agency Moody’s issued a report warning that the “growing political tension” may negatively affect the credits interests of the Socimis Merlin and Colonial, given that the entities hold 13 % and 19% of their respective portfolios in Cataluña.

Indeed, Colonial is one of the listed companies that has moved its corporate headquarters from Barcelona to Madrid because of the secessionist challenge posted by the Catalan Generalitat.

Original story: Expansión (by Rocío Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Threat Of Cataluña Independence Hurts Spain’s Largest RE Companies

10 October 2017 – Expansión

One of the sectors that is being hardest hit by the insecurity generated in Cataluña following the referendum on 1 October is real estate. In just one week, the large companies in the sector have seen their stock market valuations decrease by €717 million and how the credit ratings agency Moody’s has issued warnings about the negative effect of the political tension on the growth of rental income, occupancy rates and asset valuations.

The Socimi that is most exposed to Cataluña is Merlin. The real estate giant led by Ismael Clemente owns assets worth almost €1,500 million in Cataluña. The real estate company in which Santander and BBVA own stakes is also one of the companies that has most backed this market over the last year, positioning the Catalan capital, together with Lisbon, as one of its markets for highest growth.

In the context of that strategy, at the beginning of the year, Merlin purchased the iconic skyscraper Torres Glóries – also known as Torre Agbar – for €142 million. The building, which has a gross leasable area of 37,614 m2, is one of the candidates to house the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which will abandon its current location in London due to Brexit. Sources in the sector consider that the events of recent days completely eliminate Barcelona from the running, in favour of its rivals in the bid: Amsterdam, Dublin, Bratislava, Copenhagen and Milan.

Another Socimi with a significant portion of its assets in Cataluña is Colonial. The real estate company, which is headquartered in Barcelona, has almost 10% of its assets in the region. In the office segment alone, it owns assets worth €827 million in Cataluña, making it its third market after Paris, with €6,144 million, and Madrid, with €1,339 million. Yesterday (Monday), Colonial convened an extraordinary meeting of the Board of Directors to consider moving its headquarters (and in the end, approved their move to Madrid).

One of the projects that Colonial has underway was announced at the beginning of the year, in the form of an alliance with the company Inmo, the real estate subsidiary of the Puig family, for the development of Plaza Europa (Barcelona), with an investment of €32 million. The plan to construct a 21-storey building with a surface area of 14,000 m2 will be undertaken on a plot of land owned by the Puigs. Moreover, at the beginning of the year, Colonial started work to build a turnkey office building in the 22@ district, which will involve a total investment of €77 million and which will be ready by the middle of 2018.

In terms of the other Socimis that are listed on the main stock market, Hispana holds assets in Cataluña worth €255 million at the end of June (…). Meanwhile, Axiare owns four assets in the region (…) worth just over €126 million; and two of the assets in Lar’s portfolio are located in Cataluña (…), with a combined value of €116 million.

Amancio Ortega

(…) HNWIs have also been backing the Catalan market and, in particular, Pontegadea’s exposure to the region is significant. Amancio Ortega’s company does not disclose figures by country or autonomous region (…) however, in 2011 alone, it acquired three assets worth €233 million, including BBVA’s headquarters in Plaza Cataluña, for €100 million. It also owns important buildings on Paseo de Gràcia and Plaza Catalunya, and is the owner of the Inditex group’s largest stores.

Original story: Expansión (by R. Arroyo and M. Anglés)

Translation: Carmel Drake