Tag: portfolios

Bankinter’s Socimis Manage Assets in Spain Worth €850M

23 April 2019 – Idealista

Bankinter currently has two Socimis operating in the Spanish market, Ores Socimi and Atom Hoteles Socimi. Between them, they manage a real estate portfolio worth more than €850 million, according to the latest reports filed by the entities with the Alternative Investment Market (MAB).

The hotel Socimi, controlled by Bankinter and GMA, has the largest portfolio, comprising 21 assets located all over Spain and worth €489.2 million at the end of 2018.

Almost 60% (12) of the hotels are vacation properties and the rest (9) are urban establishments. For the time being, the hotels are mainly concentrated in the Balearic Islands, Canary Islands and Andalucía, but the company is preparing to expand overseas, where it seeks to acquire establishments in the USA, France, Italy, Germany and Greece.

Meanwhile, Ores, which is jointly controlled by Bankinter and the Portuguese giant Sonae Sierra, owns a portfolio of 35 retail assets worth €362.5 million as at 31 March 2019.

Ores’s portfolio is well diversified by asset type, size and location, with occupancy rates of almost 100%. The properties include hypermarkets, supermarkets, retail parks and high street stores leased to chains such as Continente, Mercadona, Inditex, Media Markt and Mango.

Original story: Idealista (by Custodio Pareja)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Sareb’s Losses Plummeted by 55% in 2018 to -€878M

28 March 2019 – Cinco Días

Sareb recorded losses of €878 million in 2018, which were 55% greater than those registered in the previous year. Moreover, the bad bank forecasts a similar result for this year.

Despite the disappointing results, Sareb ended 2018 with own funds of €2.6 billion, which represents a sufficient volume to not have to request any capital increase from its shareholders, which include most of Spain’s major banks and the FROB.

The President of the bad bank, Jaime Echegoyen, observed that his company is committed to the divestment of the problem assets that it acquired from the struggling banks during the crisis, and to maximise its returns. Sareb is competing against many of the banks, which are now selling large portfolios of real estate assets at significant discounts. Nevertheless, it is reluctant to match those discounts given that its cost of managing the assets is lower than the discounts being asked for.

Instead, Sareb has opted to transform the assets it owns by finishing suspended developments and building new homes on the land that it owns. Within the coming days, the company is expected to close an agreement with a property developer, which will build new assets on some of its land.

At the end of 2018, the bad bank recorded total revenues of €3.65 billion, down by 5% YoY. It sold 21,152 units during the year, up by 12% YoY. But, it continued to incur significant expenses – its financial costs alone amounted to €658 million, whilst its operating expenses amounted to €697 million, resulting in the aforementioned losses.

Since its creation in 2012, Sareb has now reduced its global portfolio by one third (€16.5 billion) and repaid 30% of the debt that it issued to pay for the assets in the first place (€15 billion).

Original story: Cinco Días (by Ángeles Gonzalo Alconada)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Bain Capital Launches a €1.25bn Fund to Invest in Europe

10 March 2019 – Eje Prime

Bain Capital has created a fund to invest €1.25 billion in European real estate. The US investment group is expected to concentrate a large part of that investment in Spain, where it already controls the property developer Habitat.

The target of the new fund will be portfolios of non-performing loans and non-strategic assets, of which there are plenty in the Spanish market.

Bain Capital has acquired several portfolios from financial institutions in Spain in recent years with a gross value of €3.5 billion.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Sabadell & CaixaBank in the Top 5 European Ranking of Toxic Asset Sales in 2018

29 January 2019 – Expansión

CaixaBank starred in the fourth largest toxic asset sale operation in Europe in 2018 whilst Sabadell starred in the seventh largest. And they were not the only transactions that the two entities undertook (…). In fact, both banks feature in the list of the Top 5 entities in Europe by volume of toxic asset portfolio sales last year, according to data collected by the analysis firm specialising in debt Debtwire.

All of that, despite the fact that Spain’s two largest banks, Santander and BBVA, had a much quieter 2018 than 2017, when the former undertook the largest sale of toxic assets in the country’s history, with the transfer of assets with a nominal value of €30 billion inherited from Popular to Blackstone. Meanwhile, BBVA placed part of its real estate business in the hands of Cerberus that same year.

Last year, Sabadell and CaixaBank took over the baton. The bank chaired by Josep Oliu is the Spanish entity that recorded the largest toxic asset sales in 2018, divesting assets with a nominal value of €12.6 billion. That figure placed it fourth in the ranking, behind only the Italian entities Monte Dei PAschi, Banca Popolare di Vicenza and Banco BPM.

Meanwhile, CaixaBank (…) was the fifth most active bank in the ranking, with toxic asset sales of €12.1 billion, just behind Sabadell.

Together with contributions from the other banks, with Bankia and Santander in high-ranking places, the Spanish sector divested toxic assets worth €43.2 billion in 2018, compared with €51.7 billion in 2017, which represented a decrease of 16%.

Nevertheless, neither CaixaBank nor Sabadell managed to keep Spain at the top of the podium of countries that divested the most toxic assets last year. Italy is the new leader with NPL sales of €103.6 billion (…).

In Spain, the loans and foreclosed assets divested by the banks are now in the hands of Cerberus and Lone Star, primarily, the two funds that purchased the most in Spain last year, with €15.8 billion and €13 billion, respectively.

Well behind them in the ranking is Axactor, which is typically more interested in smaller operations. And Blackstone, which was out of the ranking last year, after starring as the absolute leader in 2017, thanks to the operation that it closed with Santander, according to the report from Debtwire, which takes into account all transactions exceeding €100 million (…).

Original story: Expansión (by Inés Abril)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Banco Sabadell Sells 80% of Solvia to Intrum for €300M

14 December 2018 – Diario Financiero

Banco Sabadell announced today that it has agreed the sale of 80% of its real estate manager Solvia to the Nordic fund Intrum, in an operation that is going to generate €138 million of profits for the bank, which will go some way to strengthening its capital.

The real estate management platform has been valued for the operation at €300 million, and that amount may increase by a second amount of up to €40 million if the conditions established for the evolution of certain lines of business are met, according to a report filed by the bank today with Spain’s National Securities and Markets Commission (CNMV).

The transaction will strengthen the bank’s most demanding capital ratio (the fully loaded CET 1) by 15 basis points, due to the generation of the aforementioned profits of €138 million.

The Intrum group has been awarded the manager through its company Lindorff Holding, fighting off competition from the Arab fund Centricus and Haya Real Estate, the platform owned by Cerberus.

Solvia manages the divestment of non-performing assets by Sabadell, together with portfolios of the bad bank or Sareb.

Original story: Diario Financiero

Translation: Carmel Drake

Spain’s Banks Plan to Sell Real Estate Worth €12.5bn+ over the Next 2 Years

19 November 2018 – El Economista

The banks have set themselves the deadline of 2020 to reduce the property that remains on their balance sheets to an absolute minimum. On the basis of the strategic plans set out by Bankia, Liberbank, Ibercaja and the portfolio of commercial premises put up for sale by Santander, the entities are planning to divest at least €12.5 billion in non-performing assets over the next 24 months.

At this stage, we do not yet know which objectives CaixaBank will set itself in this regard; the entity will unveil its new strategic plan in London on 27 November. Meanwhile, the entity led by Ana Botín has delayed the presentation of its new objectives to the beginning of next year, as it awaits the evolution of the outcome of the elections held in Brazil in October. The exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union, which must take place in March, is also important for the group.

Spain’s entities have accelerated the divestment of their real estate in a frantic fashion over the last 15 months. This summer, Banco Sabadell sold four portfolios of non-performing assets for a combined gross value of €12.2 billion. Those operations allowed the entity to fulfil in one fell swoop the objective that it had set itself in its Strategic Plan 2018-2020 to reduce its non-performing assets by €2 billion per year.

At the end of the third quarter of this year, the entity led by Josep Oliu held €13.62 billion in toxic property left on its balance sheet, nevertheless, once the sales undertaken this summer have been completed, that exposure will be reduced by almost half to €7.67 billion, most of which comprises doubtful loans. The exposure of foreclosed assets has been reduced to around €1.2 billion.

Orderly reduction

With respect to Bankia, in its Strategic Plan to 2020, the entity projected an annual reduction in non-performing assets of €2.9 billion, which would result in the clean-up of €8.7 billion over three years. The bank chaired by José Ignacio Goirigolzarri has divested €2.4 billion during the first three quarters of this year, according to its latest accounts at the end of September, which means that it needs to sell only another €500 million during the final quarter (…).

In the same way, Liberbank closed the third quarter of the year with gross non-performing assets amounting to €3.6 billion, 25% less than it held a year ago. The bank has set itself the objective of leaving €1.7 billion on its balance sheet by the end of 2020, in other words, €1.9 billion less than it currently has.

Finally, Ibercaja, which also unveiled its objectives to 2020 in March, announced its plans to reduce its toxic assets by 50% in three years, which would mean decreasing the balance by around €1.85 billion.

15 months of sales

Santander fired the starting gun on this race with the sale of 50% of Popular’s property to Blackstone, in an operation announced in August last year. Since then, the largest sale by the bank was a portfolio of flats and garages to Cerberus in September, for a purchase price of around €1.535 billion. Thus, the bank still has a second portfolio of foreclosed assets up for sale with a gross value of around €2.4 billion (…).

The most active investment funds to purchase portfolios over the last few months have been Cerberus, Blackstone and Lone Star. Between then three of them, they have made acquisitions of foreclosed assets and doubtful loans from the Spanish banks and Sareb amounting to €48 billion (…).

Original story: El Economista (by Eva Díaz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

MAB’s Director Encourages Socimis to Generate Trust to Attract Investment

30 October 2018 – Finanzas

The Director General of the Alternative Investment Market (MAB), Jesús González Nieto (pictured below), has today encouraged the Socimis to “generate trust” through the transparency of their corporate governance arrangements to attract new investors and “to depend on the market for growth”.

González Nieto closed a conference about Socimis at the headquarters of the CEOE by underlining that generating trust is a task for everyone so that the real estate investment formula, which has been on the Spanish stock market for five years, can become increasingly well known.

In his opinion, the French and British markets have many more small investors in the real estate sector thanks to the structures that they have, which are similar to Socimis, and so he expects growth in the Spanish market if the entities can manage to provide good information about that possibility of stock market investment.

At the moment, 61 Socimis are trading on the MAB, whilst another five trade on the main stock market.

The Director General of Renta 4 Banco, Jesús Sánchez-Quiñones, has inaugurated a process for the concentration of Socimis over the coming years and has said that “they are avoiding stock market crashes”, due to their strong expectations and lower liquidity.

Representatives from eleven Socimis participated in the conference, ten on behalf of Socimis that are trading on the MAB and one that will make its debut soon: Park Rose Iberoamericana, which will start trading on 15 December.

The President of Park Rose, Luis Alberto Akel, explained that his firm has Chilean capital and is diversifying its real estate investments in Chile, the USA and Spain.

The CEO of Témpore, Nicolás Díaz Saldaña, warned that “there is a lot of international interest in the Spanish residential sector”, and, after reminding the audience that his Socimi arose as an “additional mechanism for the divestment of assets by Sareb”, he said that when that operation concludes, they will go “and look for new investors”.

Díaz Saldaña has indicated that he would like for Témpore to be listed on the main stock market and the Director General of GMP Property, José Luis García de la Calle, also noted that his firm has considered that option, but that the growing “demands” of the MAB are already broad enough, without having to implement audit and remuneration committees.

Meanwhile, the CEO of Castellana Properties, Alfonso Brunet said, “We are getting ready to comply with the requirements of the main stock market”.

The CEO of Vitruvio, Joaquín López-Chicheri, highlighted that “the Socimis allow us to diversify risk” and to be present in the four segments (residential, commercial, offices and logistics), whilst other participants in the conference indicated that they prefer to focus on a niche market.

In this way, José Nistal, from the Socimi Almagro, explained its specialisation in the purchase and rental of flats for the elderly, where the tenants have an average age of 84.3 years.

The latest Socimi to join the MAB, Azaria, in September, focuses exclusively on the long-term, stable, rental of offices and its only asset, for the time being, is the headquarters of El Páis, which is leased until 2033, explained its manager, Teodoro Díez.

Sergi Mirapeix, from Tander, explained that his firm only invests in commercial premises in the most central areas of cities (currently, it is present in four: Barcelona, Santander, Bilbao and San Sebastián) and Jorge González, the representative of the Socimi Asturias, has indicated that its sole objective is to focus on large retail parks.

Josep Turró, from Barcino, said that his firm is going to seek to diversify as much as possible, by “adaptating to demand”, and Fabrizio Agrimi, from Vbare Iberian, said that his Socimi is committed to “added value, without property developer risk”.

Original story: Finanzas 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Haya Real Estate Negotiates Contracts with Sareb & BBVA Ahead of its IPO

31 July 2018 – Europa Press

Haya Real Estate, the Spanish real estate servicer owned by the US fund Cerberus, has linked its possible IPO in Spain to the “visibility” that it obtains over the negotiations that it is holding to renew its contract to manage the real estate assets of Sareb and to take over the contract of BBVA.

That is according to the firm’s Finance Director, Bárbara Zubiria, speaking during the presentation of the servicer’s half-year results.

With respect to Sareb, Haya Real Estate is currently offering the bad bank various alternatives ahead of the termination, in mid-2019, of its contract to manage some of the bad bank’s assets.

In terms of BBVA, the firm is waiting for the entity to decide whether to award it the management of the assets that it is going to transfer to a joint venture owned by the bank together with Cerberus.

For the time being, during the first half of the year, Haya Real estate saw its revenues rise by 20% to €130.2 million, boosted by an “increase” in the commissions that it charges for its activity and management.

Meanwhile, the EBITDA grew by 16% to €64.9 million, according to reports from the company.

During the first half of the year, the servicer led by Carlos Abad managed assets amounting to €38.8 billion, on which it closed transactions worth €2.4 billion, up by 58% YoY.

In financial terms, at the end of the period, the firm had corporate debt amounting to €463 million.

Spain’s first listed servicer

Haya Real Estate is continuing to weigh up the pros and cons of its leap onto the stock market even though two of the three real estate companies that had announced their debuts, Azora and Testa Residencial, postponed their own IPOs and have opted to list on the MAB instead.

In the event that it does make its stock market debut, the firm led by Abad will become the first of its kind to list on the stock market in Spain and one of the first in Europe.

The servicer of Cerberus is not a real estate company, but rather a company that manages and develops real estate assets for third parties, in this case, primarily assets that were foreclosed by the financial institutions during the crisis.

Constituted in 2013, the firm currently manages loans and real estate assets worth almost €40 billion. Some of the entities that have entrusted the firm with the management of their assets include Cajamar, Liberbank, BBVA, Sareb and Bankia, amongst others.

Original story: Europa Press

Translation: Carmel Drake

CBRE: Investment in High Street Premises Will Exceed €1.1bn in 2018

5 July 2018 – Eje Prime

Commercial premises, especially those located on the most prime streets of Spain, are proving highly sought-after. According to CBRE, the high street investment market is going to achieve record figures in 2018, up to a total of €1.1 billion. The culprits? The German fund Deka and Inditex, in addition to the strength of secondary cities in the country.

During the course of the last two years, investment in high street assets remained stable at around €800 million per year, after peaking at €1.01 billion in 2015. In 2018, according to calculations from the real estate consultancy CBRE, the investment volume will exceed the €1 billion threshold again, primarily due to the impact of the sale to Deka of a batch of 16 Zara stores for €400 million and the boost from activity beyond Madrid and Barcelona.

Deka has whereby become a catalyst for the retail investment market in Spain, together with Generali and Union Investment, which also starred in major investment operations during the first few months of 2018.

Deka’s €400 million operation was the largest in the last year and a half, followed by the purchase by Hines of number 17 Paseo de Gracia for €113 million and the acquisition by Generali of number 9 Preciados for €107 million.

Institutional investors are the main drivers of the investment market in this segment, according to the Retail keys in Spain report in CBRE. “In recent years, several overseas institutional investors have entered the Spanish market and many have been active in 2017 and 2018”, according to the document, which points out that Socimis such as Tander, Ores and Silicius have also been interested in the sector.

Madrid and Barcelona are continuing to be the main magnets for high street investment in Spain and, together, they account for 79% of the total expenditure. “Nevertheless, other cities in Spain are booming and demand is rising for investment products in cities such as Bilbao, Valencia, Sevilla and Málaga”, says the document.

The displacement of demand to other cities is a consequence of product shortages and low returns. On the one hand, according to CBRE, operators have accentuated their preferences for prime streets, which has strengthened the shortage of products. “Premises with recently signed contracts are sparking a lot of interest, given that if they reflect market rents, they become a very stable long-term investment”, says the document.

On the other hand, the pressure on returns remains strong and in 2017, they were compressed further still, reaching levels of 3.25% in Madrid and 3.50% in Barcelona for the most prime products. The “historically low” values are repeated in other European cities, with 3.25% in Berlin, 3% in Milan, 2.75% in Paris and 2.25% in Munich.

As a result of those two elements, investor interest is extending to other cities in Spain, although the operations closed tend to be of greater importance, “given that the premises and the rents are lower and the returns are higher”.

With investment of €170 million outside of Barcelona and Madrid in 2017, several purchases stand out such as M&G’s acquisition of the H&M store on Reyes Católicos in Granada as well as of the El Corte Inglés building in Plaza la Magdalena in Sevilla.

Valencia and Bilbao are the markets that, typically, generate the most interest from investors due to the size of the two cities, the importance of their high streets and the role of tourism. The tradition of investment in the segment by local family offices means that returns there are compressed to 4%.

Retail and shopping centres

High street premises accounted for 25% of the total investment in retail in 2017, well behind shopping centres, which accounted for 51% of the total, but ahead of retail parks (15%) and portfolios of supermarkets and hypermarkets (9%) (…).

In Spain in 2017, investment in the Spanish retail market amounted to €3.3 billion. CBRE forecasts that the figure will amount to €2.9 billion in 2018, boosted by high street investment (…).

Original story: Eje Prime (by P. Riaño)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Alantra Creates Leading European Advisor for Sale of Toxic Asset Portfolios

12 July 2018 – Expansión

Alantra has just signed a document that is going to make it the leading advisor to banks in Europe for the sale of toxic asset portfolios. The deal was signed yesterday in London and involves the purchase of KPMG’s international business specialising in those kinds of bank cleanups. The team comprises more than 35 professionals, mainly seniors, who will move across to form part of Alantra and who will take with them the sales mandates, worth €16 billion, that they are working on at the moment, according to sources at the firm.

After almost a year of negotiations with KPMG, the division is finally going to join forces with the investment banking team led by Santiago Eguidazu (pictured above) to create a new company with more than 75 professionals. The new company will be a subsidiary of Alantra and will be dedicated to advising banks regarding the best exits options for their portfolios of non-performing assets.

To date, Alantra has advised 80 operations in this business across five countries since 2014, for a total nominal value of more than €65 billion. Meanwhile, KPMG’s team has advised on more than 100 transactions worth €180 billion during the same period. The resulting company has averaged 45 transactions per year for the last four years and has advised an operation volume of more than €61 billion. The transaction will involve a cash disbursement for the Spanish firm of €2.83 million.

Banks and funds

The new division will be particularly active in the medium-sized transaction market generated by both banks and funds. The focus will be primarily on Europe, but also other countries around the world where the firm has a presence. In its activity, Alantra will compete above all with PwC, the other major player in the European portfolio business alongside KPMG, and with the US giants Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs for the largest contracts.

KPMG’s international team is headquartered in London, with local offices in Milan, Athens, Dublin and Lisbon. Alantra adds Madrid to that list, from where it has organised its global coverage of the portfolio business to date, which has seen it advise operations not only in Spain but also in Portugal, Italy, Greece and Eastern Europe.

The team at Alantra has been responsible for the sale of portfolios by almost all of the Spanish banks, ranging from Sabadell (with which it is working at the moment) to Santander, and including BBVA, CaixaBank, Bankia, Liberbank, Ibercaja and the domestic subsidiary of Deutsche Bank.

The current Head of Alantra’s Portfolio Business, Joel Grau, will lead the new subsidiary, together with Andrew Jenke and Nick Colman, from KPMG.

Global advice

Between the three of them, they will pursue the objective of replicating on a European scale the model that Alantra has been adopting in Spain, and which is based on providing global advise to banks from three perspectives: corporate operations, real estate (large properties and loans from financial entities, as well as those relating to shopping centres and hotels) and portfolios of toxic assets, according to sources at Alantra.

They will operate from two main centres: Madrid and London, where many of the funds that buy the banks’ portfolios are located and thanks to which the business is expected to soar, by reselling financial assets acquired or securitising them to put them on the market.

Original story: Expansión (by Inés Abril)

Translation: Carmel Drake