Tag: Pere Viñolas

Colonial Finalises the Sale of its Logistics Centers Worth €480M

14 June 2019 – La Vanguardia

Colonial is finalising the sale of a portfolio of 15 logistics centres worth €480 million that it inherited from Axiare. The assets span a surface area of 574,462 m2 and are located on the outskirts of Madrid, Barcelona and Sevilla.

The Socimi led by Pere Viñolas hopes to complete their sale within a maximum of two months as it seeks to take advantage of the strong demand for these types of assets thanks to the boom in online commerce.

Colonial’s core portfolio comprises office buildings located in the centres of Madrid, Barcelona and Paris, with a market value of around €11.4 billion. The firm is also working on fourteen new projects located in its three key markets, which have an associated investment of €1.3 billion.

At its recent General Shareholders’ Meeting, Colonial approved the appointment of two new independent directors and ratified the distribution of a dividend amounting to €0.20 gross per share, up by 11% YoY.

Original story: La Vanguardia 

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Colonial’s Profits Fell by 23% in 2018 to €525M

26 February 2019 – El Confidencial

Colonial closed 2018 with revenues from rental income of €347 million, up by 23% compared to a year earlier. Nevertheless, the Socimi’s profit decreased by 23% to €525 million, given that in 2017, the firm recorded a gain from the sale of a building in Paris – In & Out – for €445 million and was converted into a Socimi. The buildings contributed by the merger with Axiare generated €56 million, equivalent to 16.1% of the total.

These are Colonial’s first results following the completion of its merger with Axiare, the Socimi over which it launched a €1.45 billion takeover in November 2017, and in a year in which it also increased its stake in the French firm Société Foncière Lyonnaise (SFL).

In a relevant fact sent to the CNMV, the Socimi also announced that it ended the year with assets worth €11.3 billion – distributed across the centres of Paris, Barcelona and Madrid – up by 22%, following the integration of Axiare onto its balance sheet. Excluding the effect of that integration, the increase would have amounted to 8% (…).

“Following an excellent year, we are confident of achieving a very satisfactory performance in the market and of generating rental income of €500 million over the next three or four years”, explained the CEO of Colonial, Pere Viñolas, who added that the company’s recurring profit, after excluding extraordinary items and asset revaluations, amounted to €101 million and represented an increase of 22%.

In operational terms, last year, Colonial signed 103 rental contracts, spanning a total surface area of 175,000 m2, which will generate rental income of €43 million p.a. (…).

In financial terms, at the end of 2018, Colonial recorded net debt of €4.7 billion at the end of 2018, up by 52% with respect to 2017 (€3.1 billion) before the purchase of Axiare. That liability accounts for 39% of the firm’s asset value (…).

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

Translation: Carmel Drake

Colonial Earns €254M in H1 Following the Integration of Axiare

30 July 2018 – Eje Prime

Colonial recorded a net attributable profit of €254 million following the merger of Axiare. That represented a decrease of 42% for the Catalan real estate company, although it did increase its net recurrent profit, which excludes the impact of the merger, by 12% to €41 million, according to a statement filed by the company with Spain’s National Securities and Exchange Commission (CNMV).

The Socimi led by Pere Viñolas recorded revenues from rental income of €170 million to June, up by 21%. Meanwhile, the value of Colonial’s asset portfolio amounted to €11.19 billion, up by 29% with respect to the same period last year.

In terms of its value on the stock market (the group is listed on the main exchange), the new Colonial, following the integration of Axiare, achieved a market capitalisation of more than €4.4 billion at the end of the first half of the year.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Colonial & Axiare Formally Approve Their €11bn Merger

24 May 2018 – Eje Prime

Colonial and Axiare are on the verge of merging. Yesterday (Thursday), the General Shareholders’ Meeting of the Catalan Socimi approved the firm’s merger with Axiare, in an operation that is expected to close during the second half of the year and which will give rise to the largest office building rental company in Spain, a real estate giant with asset worth €11 billion.

The integration is a consequence of the takeover bid that Colonial launched over Axiare at the end of last year to acquire the share capital that it did not own in the Socimi, of which it was already the largest shareholder. The real estate company led by Pere Viñolas purchased 86.8% of the Socimi’s share capital in the end. To obtain the remaining 13.2%, it offered a share exchange deal at a ratio of 1.8554 own shares for each Axiare share.

Colonial also subjected the capital increase necessary to undertake this exchange to its General Shareholders’ Meeting, held on Thursday. With this merger, the real estate company chaired by Juan José Brugera seeks “to consolidate” its position in the prime office sector and “to respond to the current challenges in the real estate sector by strengthening its competitive position and achieving greater size and more efficiency in the business in Spain”.

Nevertheless, it does not rule out that the integration may also generate “duplications and incoherencies” in the resulting workforce, in which case, it plans to undertake adjustments over the coming months.

Axiare will, in turn, give its “approval” to the integration at its General Shareholders’ Meeting today, 25 May, where it will also ratify the Transition Board of Directors, comprising independent members, which Colonial appointed following the takeover.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Colonial Concludes that Axiare Holds Non-Strategic Assets Worth €300M

26 February 2018 – El Confidencial

“Axiare has assets susceptible to divestment worth €300 million”. That is according to the President of Inmobiliaria Colonial, Juan José Brugera (pictured below, left), and his CEO, Pere Viñolas (pictured below, right), at the presentation of the company’s results.

“We are least interested in the Socimi’s logistics and retail assets, but that does not mean that we are going to sell off all of those assets or that said divestment is going to be undertaken this year. We have not yet been able to determine whether the assets will be sold in the end or when, due to the fact that we are not yet involved in the ordinary management of the company”, they said.

What assets are we talking about? As at September 2017, Axiare held logistics assets with a net value (GAV) of €192.6 million, spanning more than 466,235 m2. The vast majority are located in Madrid and the rest in Barcelona and other markets. To give us an idea, Axiare’s portfolio at the end of the third quarter of last year comprised 74% offices (50% in prime areas), 18% logistics platforms and 8% commercial assets (…)

Colonial, which registered a record net profit of €683 million in 2017, more than doubling (+149%) the figure obtained in the previous year, boosted by growth in the rental income of its office buildings and the appreciation in value of its assets, also estimates making net future investments of between €300 million and €400 million, in line with those undertaken to date.

In other words, between investments and investments, the net result is going to hover around the €300 million mark. These investments are going to focus on those markets where the firms already have a presence and so they will strongly back Madrid, Barcelona and Paris. Moreover, they are expected to be financed, to a large extent, through the traditional mature asset rotation policy. “We are going to continue investing, and also selling”, said both directors.

The merger will be ready in H2 2018

In this way, the real estate company is going to continue with the organic growth strategy that it has been pursuing since 2015, whilst working on the integration process with Axiare, which it estimates will take between four and five months to complete. As such, Colonial expects to close its merger with the Socimi during the second half of the year, which will materialise through a share exchange to take around 13.1% of the firm that it does not control yet.

“Of the possible alternatives, a merger is the most likely”, although both Bruguera and Viñolas have said that all of the options are currently being evaluated and that there will not be any decision in this regard until the second half of the year. Similarly, they said that they are “in conversations with Axiare to join its Board of Directors”, where they do not have a presence yet even though they increased their stake to 86.86% through the takeover, so as to take part in the Socimi’s management whilst the merger goes ahead (…).

New real estate giant

For the time being, the integration between Colonial and Axiare, which constitutes the first merger between the new generation of Socimis, will give rise to a company with real estate assets worth €11.079 billion, thus surpassing Merlin Properties. Of those assets, €9.282 billion will correspond to office buildings that Colonial owns in the centre of Madrid, Barcelona and Paris, spanning a surface area of 1.36 million m2, and the remaining €1.797 billion will correspond to assets contributed by Axiare, most of which are also offices, according to the year-end valuations completed by both companies.

In addition, the two companies generated a joint net profit of €700 million and turnover from rental income of €355 million in 2017. Nevertheless, Colonial calculates that the combined group’s revenues will increase to €500 million once the projects it currently has under development come onto the market.

Original story: El Confidencial (by E. Sanz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Colonial Completes Successful Takeover of Axiare

2 February 2018 – Eje Prime

Colonial has completed its colonisation of Axiare. After two months of to-ing and fro-ing, the company led by Pere Viñolas has managed to acquire 58.07% of the share capital of its rival Socimi and to secure approval from 81.5% of the shareholders to which it addressed its public takeover bid (OPA), which it launched in November. The company now controls 86.86% of Axiare.

In a statement submitted at midday on Friday to the National Securities and Exchange Commission (CNMV), which had previously accepted the positive result of the takeover, Colonial reported that its offer for 45,912,569 shares has been accepted. That figure represents a success for the Socimi, which had a minimum limit of 16,769,180 shares.

The company had offered to pay Axiare’s shareholders €18.36 per share, whereby valuing the management company, until now a competitor of its, at €1.451 billion. The takeover bid was launched for 71.21% of the shares that Colonial did not yet control (it was already the largest shareholder with a 28.79% stake), and so, in the end, the company will have to disburse €1.030 billion following the results made public on Friday.

With the signing of this operation, Colonial has created a real estate giant worth €10 billion and comes even closer to Merlin Properties, its main competitor and the king of the Spanish real estate sector.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Colonial Buys 110,000 m2 of Land in Méndez Álvaro (Madrid)

10 January 2018 – Eje Prime

Colonial is getting out its cheque book to inaugurate 2018. The Socimi led by Pere Viñolas has reached an agreement to acquire two plots of land with a buildable surface area of 110,000 m2 in the Méndez Álvaro area of Madrid. The group plans to build two office complexes on the plots, which are located next to Repsol’s headquarters and close to Atocha train station.

The land operation is one of the most important that Colonial has undertaken in the Spanish capital since the Cuatro Torres, according to El Confidencial. The agreement has been closed off-market, directly with small landowners.

This move will lead to the definitive launch of the urban planning project in Méndez Álvaro, which received the green light last year for the development of 129,700 m2 of land, with a buildable surface area of almost 250,000 m2, split between residential (185,313 m2) and tertiary use (61,771 m2) (…).

Specifically, Colonial has purchased one plot with a surface area of 90,000 m2, located next to Repsol’s current headquarters, and a second plot, also close to Atocha station, measuring 20,000 m2.

The acquisition of the two plots has cost €185 million. The total investment in the project, including the subsequent development of the two office complexes, will amount to €355 million (…).

The emergence of the Socimi in this operation suggests that in the end, there will be a greater weight of offices in the area, taking advantage of the dual-use (residential and tertiary) assigned to the plots that border Calle Méndez Álvaro.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

CNMV Approves Colonial’s Takeover of Axiare

28 December 2017 – Eje Prime

Colonial is getting closer to the finishing line in its race to create a real estate giant. Today, Spain’s National Securities and Exchange Commission (CNMV) approved the takeover bid launched by the real estate group for the Socimi Axiare on 13 November 2017; given its size, the potential deal has had the sector on tenterhooks for the last month and a half.

The market supervisor has valued the operation to purchase the 71% of the share capital in the Madrid-based company that Colonial does not control yet at €1.033 billion. If the transaction goes ahead, the Socimi will sell non-strategic assets worth around €300 million, as Eje Prime revealed.

Through this merger, the Socimi led by Pere Viñolas, one of the real estate sector’s stars this year, is seeking to generate a giant with almost €10 billion in assets, which would threaten the position of leadership in the market currently held by Merlin.

According to the details of the takeover offer accepted by the CNMV, Colonial will pay €18.36 for each one of Axiare’s 56.30 million shares. In theory, the real estate company offered the firm led by Luis López de Herrera-Oria a payment of €18.50 per share, to which the Socimi responded by calling the operation “hostile”. Nevertheless, the distribution of Axiare’s dividend has led to a reduction in that final offer, after Colonial warned the Socimi that this fact would change the conditions of the takeover bid.

Following the approval of the stock exchange supervisor, and with CaixaBank’s bank guarantee at the ready, the period will open on Friday (29 December) for Axiare’s shareholders to take a stance, as well as for the issue of a report about the operation by the target Socimi’s Board of Directors. This period to accept the takeover bid will run from 29 December until 29 January, both inclusive. Colonial needs the support of 21.21% of the shareholders, in addition to the 28.7% stake that it already controls, which would allow the company led by Viñolas to exceed the 50% threshold in terms of its stake in the rival company.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Axiare: BofA & 4 Large Hedge Funds Acquire Stakes in Midst of Colonial Takeover Bid

21 November 2017 – Bolsa Mania

Bank of America, one of the giants of the US financial sector, has acquired a stake in Axiare, at the same time as Colonial has launched a takeover bid for the Socimi with the aim of creating an office rental giant. The US entity has declared to the CNMV that it holds a 6.7% stake in Axiare, whilst another group of funds has purchased just over 8% of the entity, at a time when the largest real estate operation in Spain this year is on the verge of being completed.

On Monday, the investment fund Wellington Management announced an increase in its stake from 3% to 3.8%. That means that 15% of Axiare’s share capital is now in the hands of funds. MVN Asset Management (Maven Securities), Gruss Global and Amber Global appeared last week with stakes of 3.5%, 1.1% and 1.21%, respectively. Those qualifying investors join Citi, which already held a 4.9% stake in the Socimi and which emerged as the only high-profile shareholder behind Colonial, after the other shareholders sold their stakes in this real estate company.

Specifically, the British firm MVN Asset Management (Maven Securities) declared a stake of 3.09% in Axiare on 13 November, and on Tuesday (21 November), increased that percentage to 3.5%. Gruss Global controls another 1.1%. Meanwhile, Amber Global, an entity headquartered in the Cayman Islands, has reported that it holds a stake of 1.21%, in that case, all through derivatives, according to the CNMV’s registers. Maven and Amber Global acquired their stakes in Axiare on the same day that Colonial launched its takeover bid for the Socimi Axiare. Colonial is already the largest shareholder with a 28.7% stake.

With its offer, the real estate company led by Pere Viñolas is looking to acquire the remaining 71% of Axiare that it does not yet control. On the same day as it submitted its offer, Colonial increased its stake in the Socimi from 15% to 28%. To that end, it offered €18.50 per share in the Socimi chaired by Luis López de Herrera-Oria. That price represents a premium of 13% over the share price of Axiare on the eve of the takeover and 20.8% over the average list price for the last three months. On Tuesday, the Socimi’s shares were trading at around €18.30.

Axiare claims that the takeover is “hostile”

Axiare says that the takeover that Colonial launched over the company on Monday is hostile in nature, given that it did not know anything about the intentions of the real estate company. The firm, whose largest shareholder is Colonial, announced that it will consult its legal and financial advisors regarding the details of the operation.

“Until the morning of 13 November, neither the management team nor the Board of Directors of Axiare was aware of the intentions of Colonial to purchase an additional block of shares, nor of its intention to formulate a takeover bid”, say sources at the firm chaired by Luis López de Herrera-Oria.

This is not the first time that discrepancies have arisen between the two companies. In fact, it is the second time that Axiare has expressed its resistance to Colonial’s acquisition of its shares. The first time was when the company purchased 15% of the Socimi. Proof, they argue, is that Colonial is not represented on the most senior governing body of Axiare, because it is considered to be a “competitor”.

Original story: Bolsa Mania (by Alberto Sanz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Without Secessionist Threat, Merlin Would Invest Twice As Much In Barcelona

16 June 2017 – Expansión

The President of Merlin Properties, Ismael Clemente (pictured above), confirmed yesterday that his Socimi would invest “twice as much in Cataluña in the absence of the political instability there”. “Our investments in Barcelona account for 16% of the total at the moment, but we could invest up to 30%”, he said. However “the types of political movements based on superiority do not create any kind of sympathy amongst investors”, he added, and so “we are not able to invest as much as we would like to in Cataluña”.

Regarding the reactions that international investors – including some of Merlin’s shareholders – have had to the political problems in Cataluña, Clemente said that “there is no kind of sympathy for the topic” and that “if the (Spanish) Government were to give a more definite reaction, both the international investor community and the Ibex 35 would applaud it”.

Clemente, who participated yesterday in the Annual Meeting of the Esade Alumni Real Estate Club, in Barcelona, said that the Catalan sovereign process may also affect the city’s candidacy to host the European Medicines Agency. “The project has a lot of potential, the coordination between the administrations is exemplary and the proposal is spectacular, but Barcelona has a gigantic problem, the political issue”, he added.

Context

Ismael Clemente shared the discussion table with Colonial’s CEO, Pere Viñolas. They addressed issues such as the change in the cycle of some international real estate markets. “The deceleration in London and New York may have a limited impact here, but Spain will continue to grow and at a faster rate than other European economies”, said Clemente. Viñolas added that the only approach is “to focus on industrial added value because it is the only margin that we can work with”.

Original story: Expansión (Marisa Anglés)

Translation: Carmel Drake