Intu To Buy Xanadú Shopping Centre In Madrid For €500M

1 February 2017 – Real Estate Press

Intu has put the highest offer on the table for the Xanadú shopping centre and, although the final terms of the deal have not yet been agreed, all indications suggest that the British group will end up acquiring the sought-after asset.  

Market sources say that the price of this operation (…) could reach as much as €500 million, with an initial yield of almost 4%. That figure would represent a milestone for the market and represents yet another example of the high degree of interest being shown in this kind of asset.

A price of €500 million would exceed the €495 million paid by Deutsche Bank when it purchased Diagonal Mar in Barcelona last year and would make it the largest shopping centre transaction ever closed in Spain.

The Xanadú shopping centre, which is located in the Madrilenian municipality of Arroyomolinos, was inaugurated in May 2003 and is owned by the Canadian group Ivanhoé Cambrdige, the real estate division of Caisse de Dépôt et placement du Québec, one of Canada’s largest institutional funds.

Ivanhoé bought Madrid Xanadú in 2006 from Mills Corporation, together with two other shopping centres, one in Canada – Vaughan Mills (Ontario) and one in Scotland – Saint Enoch (Glasgow) – for a combined value of around €770 million.

The shopping centre in Arroyomolinos has a total surface area of c. 180,000 m2, as well as almost 10,000 parking spaces, of which 500 are indoors.

Madrid Xanadú houses almost 220 stores, leased to tenants such as Hipercor, El Corte Inglés, Bricor, Apple, Hollister and Decathlon. It also offers leisure facilities, oriented towards families and young people, including a 15-screen cinema, a mini-golf course, a mini theme park, themed restaurants and a bowling alley.

The shopping centre also has an indoor ski area, the only one in Spain and the largest in Europe, with almost 18,000 m2 of slopes.

Moreover, last summer, Ivanhoé signed an agreement with the attraction park manager Parques Reunidos to construct an Aquarium in Madrid Xanadú. Both companies reached the agreement with Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN), a division of Viacom to construct a leisure centre with characters from Nickelodeon at Madrid Xanadú.

The aquarium, which will open its doors in 2017, will be the first in Madrid and the first in a shopping centre in Spain, whilst the Nickelodeon leisure centre will open its doors at the beginning of 2018 and will be the first of its kind in Madrid. Madrid Xanadú is located fifteen minutes from the centre of the capital by car and is well connected to all points in the Community of Madrid.

Original story: Real Estate Press

Translation: Carmel Drake

Advent International Puts Tinsa Up For Sale

18 January 2016 – Expansión

Everything is now ready for the sale of Tinsa, Spain’s largest real estate appraiser, which has been controlled by Advent International since 2010. A few months ago, the private equity fund appointed the investment bank Rothschild as advisor to the process, and now that its preparations have been completed, market sources expect the sale to be officially launched this week, with the distribution of the sales prospectus. Advent has declined to comment.

During the months leading up to the launch, the phase during which interest from investors is typically gauged both financial investors (other private equity houses) and industrial companies have expressed their interest in analysing the purchase. The latter include some companies in the same sector, as well as others from beyond, which view the acquisition of a real estate appraiser as an additional or complementary business line, say sources.

The valuation of the company will range between €300 million and €350 million, according to market estimates, an amount that represents around 10x Tinsa’s forecast EBITDA for this year. The company’s results for 2015 have not yet been published, but the company expected to increase sales by 12%, to €86 million, and to generate an EBITDA of €20 million, which it forecasts will rise to around €30 million in 2016.

This outlook reflects the strong recovery that the Spanish real estate sector is enjoying, after a severe period of inactivity following the burst of the bubble and the resultant financial and economic crisis.

In fact, the resurrection of the property market may have been one of the reasons behind Advent’s decision to exit the appraiser. According to sources, if all goes according to plan, the operation will be completed within the first half of this year.

Timing

The situation was completely different when the fund led in Spain by Carlos Santana, CEO, acquired Tinsa. Then, the Spanish real estate sector was in dire straits. Advent acquired a 94.% stake in the appraisal company in November 2010, for around €100 million and whereby took over the shares previously held by 35 different savings banks.

With the sale of Tinsa, Advent’s portfolio of Spanish investment companies, will be reduced to just one asset: the civil explosive manufacturer, Maxam, in which it acquired an almost 50% stake in 2011. Nevertheless, the manager is not planning to withdraw from the country completely. In fact, it is continuing to comb the ground in search of new purchases and it has participated in some of the sales undertaken recently in the PE sector, such as the auction for Parques Reunidos, for which it submitted an initial bid, however that did not meet the demands of the owner, the fund Arle Capital Partners.

Original story: Expansión (by Mamen Ponce de León)

Translation: Carmel Drake