Tag: Mutua Madrileña

Spain’s Largest Landlords are Merlin, Colonial, GMP & Mapfre

19 April 2019 – Expansión

Merlin, Colonial, GMP and Mapfre: three Socimis and one insurance company together own 16% of the total office space in Madrid. Blackstone, Realia, Mutua Madrileña, Tristan, Pontegadea and Starwood complete the Top 10 ranking.

According to a report from Deloitte, the ten largest landlords own more than 3.1 million m2 of leasable space in Madrid, out of a total spanning more than 13 million m2 (24%). In Barcelona, there is 6.1 million m2 of leasable space.

Leading the ranking is Merlin, which owns 7% of the total stock in Madrid and more than 3% in Barcelona. Its 140-strong office portfolio is worth €5.5 billion and accounts for 45% of its total assets. The Socimi’s tenants include BBVA, Endesa, Inditex and PwC, and its star assets include Torre PwC in Madrid and Torre Glòries in Barcelona.

Behind Merlin is Colonial, which owns 3.8% of the office stock in Madrid and 4.6% in Barcelona (where it is the market leader). Its key assets include the building located on Paseo de la Castellana, 52, two properties on Calle Miguel Ángel (numbers 11 and 23), all in Madrid, and Torre Marenostrum in Barcelona.

Completing the podium is GMP, which owns 2.8% of the gross leasable area in Madrid, including Torre BBVA and Torre Ederra, both in Azca. Meanwhile, the insurance companies Mapfre and Mutua Madrileña own 2.7% and 1.4% of the total stock in the Spanish capital, respectively.

In addition, the funds have strengthened their positions in recent months. The US fund Starwood purchased a portfolio of offices in Madrid and Barcelona from Autonomy for €125 million. It also acquired the San Fernando Business Park, in conjunction with Drago, from Oaktree for €120 million.

The British fund Tristan has also been active, with the acquisition of an office complex on Avenida de Manoteras in 2017 and the purchase of six offices spanning 78,000 m2 from Colonial in 2018 (…).

Original story: Expansión (by R. Arroyo)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

The Alternative Asset Boom: Student Halls, Co-Working Spaces & Data Centres Are On The Rise

26 September 2017 – Eje Prime

2017 is going to be remembered in the real estate sector as the year of alternative assets. A large number of corporate operations in the student housing segment and healthcare sector means that investors are looking more carefully at these products. So much so that 44% of international investors say that they plan to spend money acquiring these kinds of assets over the next few years.

One of the main reasons for focusing on these types of investments is geographical behaviour and demand, important for 69% of the international funds surveyed. The next most important reason, for 46% of investors, is the stability of the returns from such investments, according to the Emerging Trends Europe 2017 study prepared by PwC. Diversification and high yields are also reasons for 46% and 45% of investors, respectively, according to the findings of the report.

For 61% of investors, the student housing business has one of the most promising outlooks, in that case, due to the demand from the demographics. “It is important to highlight that this looks like being a secular trend rather than a cyclical one”, explain sources at PwC.

Nevertheless, the corporate operations that have been carried out in recent months in the sector support this trend. The most recent saw Azora, Artá Capital, March Campus (Banca March’s client investor vehicle) and Mutua Madrileña, reach an agreement to sell Grupo Resa to a group of international investors, represented by Axa and CBRE. Even so, and although these kinds of assets are on the rise, only 23% of the funds specialising in real estate hold such properties in their portfolios.

After student halls of residence come hotels. 51% of investors have either acquired or have been exploring the possibility of investing in this kind of asset. In Spain, the Socimi Hispania has decided to specialise in this type of asset, whereby positioning itself as one of the largest companies in the hotel segment in the country.

Nursing homes for the elderly and clinics (healthcare) have also been gaining in importance during 2017 and will be the assets to watch in coming years (…).

One recent operation involving this kind of asset in Spain saw Healthcare Activos Investment acquire the Los Tilos nursing home for €15.5 million, in a transaction brokered by BNP Paribas Real Estate (…).

The most alternative assets

Within the group of alternative investments identified by PwC are some that break the mould due to their lack of history in the real estate sector. One of them is shared offices, also known as co-working spaces. In recent months, they have sparked interest amongst investors of all kinds, with operators such as WeWork and Spaces leading the way (…).

Last week, Spaces, an international workspace company, announced that it is going to open an office measuring 1,511 m2 in Madrid, at number 4 Calle Manzanares, known by the group as Spaces Rio. And within the next few weeks, it will open a new Spaces centre in Barcelona (in the 22@ district).

Meanwhile, WeWork confirmed its arrival in Spain earlier this month. The company, which specialises in the management of coworking spaces, has leased an office building in the 22@ district in Barcelona (…).

Finally, data centres, where data servers are managed and stored, have also seen their profile rise in the real estate business. These types of asset, which are mostly located on the outskirts of major cities, are expected to capture the attention of 15% of investors this year (…).

Original story: Eje Prime (by C. Pareja)

Translation: Carmel Drake

AXA & CBRE GI Buy Resa, The Student Hall Giant

19 September 2017 – El Confidencial

Azora, Artá Capital, March Campus (the investment vehicle backed by Banca March clients) and Mutua Madrileña have reached an agreement to sell 100% of Grupo Resa to a group of international investors. AXA IM – Real Assets and CBRE Global Investment Partners – on behalf of their clients – have acquired most of the portfolio, whilst Greyster, which has acquired the operating business, will act as the asset manager.

The operation is subject to final authorisation from the competition authorities and, although the amount of the transaction is unknown, real estate experts say that it will be one of the most important transactions in 2017 by investment volume.

Grupo Resa, which has been on the market since the beginning of March, has consolidated its position as the largest platform of student halls in Spain, with 9,309 beds in 19 cities, including Madrid, Barcelona and Salamanca. Resa is the largest student hall company in Spain, and in Continental Europe. Managed by Azora since 2011, it has experienced significant growth during that period, increasing its portfolio of halls from 26 to 37, of which 33 are currently operational and the remaining 4 are being constructed. BBVA and CBRE have acted as financial advisors to the vendors and Garrigues has been the legal advisor to the operation.

Resa obtained revenues of €46 million in 2016, which represented an increase of 30% with respect to the figure recorded in 2014 (€27 million), when it generated an EBITDA of €26 million. The occupancy ratio of the properties is close to 100%, according to documentation about the company (to which this newspaper has had access) and also according to its ambitious expansion plans for the next decade, which include doubling in size, to achieve a portfolio of around 17,000 beds across Spain.

Resa currently has four projects underway, which will add almost one thousand more beds to its existing supply, in such a way that, in the short term, it will have almost 10,000 beds. To put that in context, the company has seven times more beds than its next largest competitor in Spain (…).

The sale of Resa is the second operation of these characteristics to go ahead in Spain in a year, given that in March last year, the fund Oaktree put Threesixty Developments – formerly Knightsbridge Student Housing – up for sale. It is one of the largest builders and operators of student halls of residence in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain, where it has seven projects – five in Madrid and two in Barcelona – which it manages through the Student Housing Company platform and which contain more than 2,600 beds.

Twenty years of experience

(…). Grupo Resa was founded in 1992 and four years later it opened its first hall of residence in Terrasa. (…). Its stock includes accommodation with everything included to the rental of rooms only.

Original story: El Confidencial (by E.S.)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Mutua Sells Palacio de Miraflores, Nike’s Headquarters in Madrid, for €60 Million

 

23 August 2017

Remer Investment is the new owner of the office building

Mutua Madrileña has finalized the sale of the Palacio de Miraflores, a property located in the centre of Madrid, which is now in the hands of the company Remer Investment, this newspaper confirmed with various sources in the sector.

The new owner has paid about 60 million euros for this classical style office building, located at 15 Calle Carrera de San Jerónimo, just 200 meters from Madrid’s Congress of Deputies.  The building is the site of Nike’s headquarters in the capital city.

The deal is part of the insurer’s policy of dynamic asset management, which is based on the analysis of possible purchases or sales of real estate assets in favourable circumstances. In this case, the Palacio de Miraflores is one of Mutua’s office assets that, despite being in a very central location, is not in the Castellana area, which is considered the prime zone for corporate real estate in Madrid and is where the principal buildings owned by the company in the city are located.

The Palacio de Miraflores, which was included previously as a Property of Cultural Interest by the Spanish government, was acquired in 1999 by Mutua Madrileña, and for which it paid 3 billion of the old pesetas (about 18 million euros). The building, which was designed by the architect Pedro de Ribera and built between 1731 and 1732, has an area of 7,132 square meters distributed between six floors and 81 underground parking spaces.

In 2007, the building was chosen by Casa Asia to house its delegation in Madrid, but since 2011 it has become Nike’s headquarters, which left Las Rozas to move to this emblematic building, where it rented 2,800 square meters, distributed on two floors. In addition, the sports company shares the building, which is fully occupied, with other tenants such as the National Tourism Office of Japan and the company Nigel Wright, among others.

The Palacio de Miraflores, which was originally the residence of the Count of Villapaterna, who was named as the Marqués de Miraflores in 1817, was rehabilitated by the insurer in 2011 as part of the real estate modernization plan that Mutua undertook between 2008 and 2014. The objective of this reform was to upgrade the building to attain higher levels of efficiency and sustainability, reducing its energy consumption.

Equity portfolio

At the end of 2016, Mutua Madrileña, which confirmed the sale of the property to eleconomista.es, had assets with a market price of 7.331 billion euros, €500 million more than at the end of the previous year. The insurer’s real estate portfolio accounted for 19% (1.446 billion euros) of the total.  At the end of last year, the portfolio was composed of 25 buildings with a total area of 210,060 square meters.

Among Mutua Madrileña’s latest acquisitions is an office building located at 51 Calle José Abascal. This property, located in Madrid’s central business district, underwent an intense renovation and last July, Barclays announced that it would set up offices there. The financial institution will be installed in the old Philatelic Forum building for at least a ten-year period, fully occupying the building’s 3,600 square meters.

Among the insurer’s principal properties on the Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid, are its headquarters, at number 33, as well as the numbers 31, 36-38, 50 and 110. It also owns the Torre de Cristal, the Torre de Colon and the Torre de Alfredo Mahou (2 Plaza de Manuel Gómez Moreno).

Original Story: Eleconomista.es – Alba Brualla

Translation: Richard Turner

Barclays Leases Central Madrid Office From Mutua Madrileña

26 July 2017 – El Confidencial

Last year, just a few months apart, Mutua Madrileña and Barclays starred in two of the most important office transactions in the capital’s recent history.

On the one hand, during the summer, the insurer broke a decade of investment drought when it acquired the property at number 51 on Calle José Abascal, the former headquarters of Fórum Filatélico.

On the other hand, in the autumn, the British bank took the decision to sell its last jewel in Spain with the sale of the property at number 1 Plaza de Colón, an operation that was completed at the beginning of this year.

Now, the paths of these two entities have crossed again with a rental agreement that they have signed for Barclays to occupy the whole, recently refurbished, Mutua Madrileña building.

The property, located just a stone’s throw from the heart of the Paseo de la Castellana, has a surface area of 3,600 m2, spread over seven floors and 62 parking spaces. It has just been renovated in accordance with the latest energy efficiency and sustainability technologies.

Mutua Madrileña acquired the building for €30 million from Credit Suisse, an entity that had, in turn, taken over the property during Fórum Filatélico’s bankruptcy process (…).

Now that the property has restored its past splendour, Barclays will install its investment banking and corporate banking activities there, given that it sold its entire retail business to CaixaBank two years ago for €820 million.

Barclays’ former headquarters on Plaza de Colón was acquired by CBRE GI, which also plans to carry out a comprehensive renovation of that property, which may be used for retail purposes in the future.

Original story: El Confidencial (by R. U.)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Empark’s Owners Engage JP Morgan To Sell The Giant For €850M

19 May 2017 – Expansión

Empark is back on the market. The Portuguese controlling shareholders of the car park company have engaged JP Morgan to find a buyer for an entity worth around €850 million, on the basis of the prices and valuations of other similar transactions in the sector. Empark is the leading car park company in Spain with 500,000 parking spaces in the Iberian Peninsula, the United Kingdom and Turkey. The firm’s gross operating profit (EBITDA) amounts to €65 million and its debt, which the company has been restructuring over the last year, amounts to €475 million.

Following the most recent changes, Empark’s shareholder structure is still dominated by the Portuguese investors Silva & Silva, which own 78% of the company. The second largest shareholder is the Chinese conglomerate Haitong, with a 14% stake.

The company’s control vehicle is dominated by the founding families, who participate in the management of the group. The main executives of Empark are José Augusto Tavares, Pedro Mendes (Executive President) and Antonio Moura.

The last attempt to sell the company was made in 2015. Then, the company progressed to the stage of selecting a buyer, Vinci Park (Ardian), but the operation did not come to fruition. Vinci Park reported the breakdown in its negotiations to buy Empark in July of that year after finalising its due diligence work, which produced unsatisfactory findings. Ultimately, the company was concerned about Empark’s high exposure to town halls which, following the local elections held that year, were considering “re-municipalisation”.

Sources close to the fund Ardian say that they are not interested in the operation at the moment. The infrastructure investment giant put Indigo (formerly Vinci park) up for sale this year for around €3,000 million. The sale of Empark is quite complex, given that the shares of the car park company serve, in turn, to secure the shareholders’ personal loans.

According to sources close to the operation, the Portuguese shareholders have dragged the other shareholders into the sale and have been given until the beginning of October to find a buyer. They are keen to leverage the ‘drag along clause’ set out in the company’s shareholder agreements (which means that when a third party makes an offer to purchase the company by buying all of its share capital, then the shareholder that has the ‘drag along right’ may force the other shareholders to sell their stakes to the buyer).

Sources in the sector believe that if Pedro Mendes and his partners do not find an investor with a reasonable offer in time, Haitong may push ahead with the operation by itself or with one of Empark’s creditor banks. Deutsche Bank is one of the company’s latest lenders. The German bank manages the fund RREEF Infrastructure.

One of the possible candidates to analyse the purchase operation is the fund First State, which acquired España Parkia from the Nordic fund EQT and Mutua Madrileña in 2016 for just over €300 million. The US fund Alinda is also very active in Spain. It has made an offer to buy Isolux’s car park portfolio. Another candidate could be the Chinese firm Haitong

Original story: Expansión (by C. Morán)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Eurosic Teams Up With Allianz To Launch A Socimi In Spain

13 February 2017 – El Economista

The Socimi market is still going strong and for the first time since the legislation governing these listed companies was reformed, a vehicle is now being created with mostly French capital. In December 2015, the French real estate giant Eurosic created Eurosic Investment Spain Socimi, with the aim of debuting it on the stock market with a share capital of more than €100 million, according to sources in the sector.

Eurosic, which already tried less than a year and a half ago to debut on the Spanish stock market by purchasing Testa, will launch this Socimi in partnership with the Allianz group, which will use this vehicle to take a new step in its strategy to gain weight in the Spanish real estate business.

The insurance company, through two of its companies, Allianz Invest Pierre and Euler Hermes Reinsurance – world leader in credit insurance – has entered the shareholding of Eurosic Investment Spain Socimi. Both companies, which are headquartered in Switzerland and France, respectively, have taken positions in an operation worth €67 million, according to TTR.

Allianz gains in strength

With this move, Allianz increases its exposure to Spanish real estate, a market it broke into last September, through Allianz Real Estate, which opened a branch in Madrid to track operations in the Iberian Peninsula and manage the Group’s properties on the ground.

Allianz Real Estate’s portfolio contains assets under management worth €41,700 million; €29,300 million in direct and indirect investments and loans worth €12,400 million – figures as at end of 2015, when operations amounting to €7,400 million were closed. Its aim is to reach AuM of €60,000 million “within a few years”.

The strategy that Allianz is carrying out, which includes acquiring stakes in debt and listed companies, as well as direct and indirect positions in financing, places it amongst the most active insurance companies in the real estate market. (…).

Companies such as Mapfre, Mutua Madrileña, Santalucía, Reale and Línea Directa have acquired properties recently and are now looking for opportunities, although their incursion as financiers is residual or non-existent, in contrast to the role played by multinationals such as Axa and Allianz.

Eurosic’s portfolio

In Spain, Eurosic set the wheels in motion last year to feed its portfolio of assets. In this way, in October, it closed the purchase of two buildings in Madrid, at number 40 on Calle Atocha and number 27 on Calle Magdalena. In the same month, it acquired Hotel Tropicana, located on La Carihuela seafront in Torremolinos. This year, it has continued its spending spree with the purchase of Hotel Monterrey Roses (a three-star establishment in Roses, Gerona) and a portfolio of assets in Palma de Mallorca, comprising two hotels and some tourist apartments.

Original story: El Economista (by Alba Brualla)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Alicia Koplowitz Considers Buying Barclays’ HQ In Spain

2 November 2016 – Expansión

Omega Capital, the investment vehicle owned by Alicia Koplowitz, is analysing strengthening its presence in the real estate market, taking advantage of the boom in the sector at the moment. It is considering submitting a bid for Barclays’ headquarters in Spain, located right in the heart of Madrid.

The office building in question is located at number 1, Plaza de Colón, opposite the Torres de Colón – the 116m-tall twin skyscrapers owned by Mutua Madrileña -. The property is worth between €40 million and €60 million, according to market sources.

The building has a surface area of around 3,900 m2 spread over three floors – ground, first and second -, and a terrace with spectacular views over the central Madrileñian square.

The property was taken over by Barclays when the British financial institution acquired Banco Valladolid in the 1980s.

More than two decades later, the banking entity has now decided to put the iconic building up for sale and has engaged the real estate consultancy CBRE to advise it during the process. Several investors have already expressed an interest in the property, in addition to the company owned by Alicia Koplowitz. Sources at the consultancy firm declined to comment about the sales process or the possible candidates for acquiring the property.

The British bank, which is considering remaining as a tenant of the building for a few months following the sale, until it finds a new location for its headquarters in Spain, is using this operation to take advantage of the investor appetite for well-located office buildings in Spain’s capital and whereby generate cash.

The lack of buildings in the prime area of Madrid has caused the appeal of them to increase given the supply shortage and the problems involved in carrying out new constructions in the city centre. One of the most high profile purchases in recent months involved Pontegadea’s purchase of Torre Foster.

The British entity indicated recently that it has detected considerable appetite for the property on Plaza Colón and it had received informal queries regarding its sale.

Barclays also said that it is considering the option of relocating its headquarters to a place that offers a better service “in terms of facilities, technology and comfort” for the entity, in a property that is aligned with the needs of its corporate and investment banking business.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Barclays Puts Its HQ In Madrid Up For Sale

5 October 2016 – El Confidencial

An iconic building in a unique location. That is the key selling point for Plaza de Colón, 1, the address of Barclay’s headquarters in Spain and the building that the British entity has decided to put up for sale in an operation that symbolises the bank’s downfall in the country.

The British entity has launched a process to sell the building for an amount that, depending on the bids received, could reach €55 million. In exchange, Barclays undertakes to remain as the sole tenant for a year, which will allow the new owner to lease the building to a new firm once it has completed the necessary renovation. Several sources familiar with the deal say that CBRE has exclusive rights to this operation, but neither the consultancy firm nor the bank have made any comments in this regard.

This divestment is the perfect finale to a real estate strategy that started to take shape two years ago, when Barclays sold its retail business to CaixaBank for €820 million. The British entity left this building outside of that transaction, as part of a reorganisation of its assets in Spain that followed the agreement with the Catalan bank.

In the specific case of the headquarters in Colón, the sale of the property by the former subsidiary (Barclays Bank SAU) to the mother ship in London was recorded at €15 million, an amount that will now allow the entity to recognise significant gains from its sale.

Following the agreement with CaixaBank, Barclays has limited its operations in Spain to activities involving investment and corporate banking, areas in which the entity hopes to gain market share in the future.

In fact, an official spokesperson acknowledged that “Barclays has started to explore the option of putting the building it owns in Colón up for sale”, and explained that the reason is that “we are considering the possibility of relocating the headquarters to a site that offers a better service in terms of facilities, technology and comfort, and which is tailored to the investment and corporate banking businesses that the bank is now focusing on and wanting to grow in Spain”.

End of an era

Barclays, which was ranked as the sixth largest entity in the country in its hey day when it purchased the former bank Zaragozano, took ownership of this three storey building two decades ago, when it acquired Banco Valladolid.

Now, with its sale, the bank is looking to take advantage of the strong investor appetite that currently exists in the Spanish real estate market. This interest is barely being met on the supply side, given that all buyers are complaining about the lack of quality buildings for sale along the Castellana thoroughfare, the most prime area in Madrid.

In this context, Plaza de Colón is experiencing a real metamorphosis, given that besides this operation, Mutua Madrileña has received several offers for its famous Torres de Colón, whilst BPA holds in its hands the future of the former headquarters of Banco Madrid.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Ruth Ugalde)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Allianz Real Estate Opens Branch In Spain

22 September 2016 – El Economista

The real estate arm of Allianz has arrived in Spain, attracted by the investment opportunities on offer here. Allianz Real Estate has just opened a branch in Madrid to track its operations in the Iberian Peninsula and take responsibility for the management of the properties owned by the group.

To lead the project, the firm has hired Miguel Torres, ex-Arthur Andersen, who has been linked with GE Capital Real Estate since 1995, according to the Commercial Registry. “After the recovery of the real estate markets, Spain and Portgual are once again in the focus of international real estate investors”, explained the CEO of Allianz Real Estate, François Traush, who highlighted that the incorporation of Torres into the team aimed “to identify attractive investment opportunities to allow us to continue constructing a diversified portfolio”, for our shareholders.

With more than 20 years of experience in the real estate and structured financing sectors, Torres joins the company from GE Capital in Mexico, where he served as Director General, leading a team of 50 specialists and an unit with almost €3,500 million in real estate financing. Prior to that, he held various management positions at GE entities in Madrid, New York and Stamford.

Allianz Real Estate’s portfolio contains €41,700 million in assets under management: €29,300 million in direct and indirect investments, plus loans amounting to €12,400 million, based on figures at 2015 year end, when it closed operations amounting to €7,400 million. Its goal is to reach the €60,000 million threshold “within the next few years”.

The company, which has subsidiaries in Germany, France, Italy – into which the operations in Spain will report -, Switzerland and the USA, includes the office in Madrid as part of its regional expansion.

Its investment aspirations cover almost the entire sector: from taking stakes in debt, to investing in listed companies, direct and indirect positions in financing and building a significant property portfolio.

It debuted as a lender in Spain a year and a half ago, with a loan for €133 million that allowed the Socimi Merlin to acquire the Marineda Shopping Centre, which, at the time, was the largest investment in this type of complex since 2008.

The strategic logic is two-fold. The low interest rate environment is causing insurance companies to dust off old commitments to property in light of the meagre returns being offered by public debt and the high capital consumption involved with other investments. Companies such as Mapfre, Mutua Madrileña, Santalucía, Reale and Línea Directa have acquired properties recently and are looking for opportunities, although their involvement as financiers is residual or non-existent, unlike the role performed by multi-national firms such as Axa and Allianz.

The sector hopes that Brussels will smooth the path, easing the burden of callable capital, given that the Juncker Plan itself wants to involve infrastructure projects that Europe needs.

In addition, the real estate sector is presenting itself as an alternative that offers higher returns, especially given the security of their operations. The high expectations of growth in terms of office rents and a notable increase in the number of small operations, is converting this segment of the market into one of the most attractive options. In the case of the most cutting-edge buildings and those located in prime areas, rents may increase by up to 22% over the next three years. For the other more modest assets, the annual yield amounts to around 7%. Similarly, yields of commercial premises amount to around 7.5%,and rents are expected to increase by an average of 2.4% p.a. in Madrid over the next two years.

Original story: El Economista (by Eva Contrerar and Alba Brualla)

Translation: Carmel Drake