Tag: portfolios

Sabadell Receives 7 Offers to Liquidate its Doubtful Debt

28 June 2018 – Expansión

In the end, seven international funds have presented offers to Banco Sabadell to be awarded one or more of the four portfolios that the entity has put on the market this year to liquidate almost all of its problem asset balance. The funds in question are Cerberus, Lone Star, Blackstone, Oaktree, Deutsche Bank, Bain Capital and CPPIB, although not all of them have bid for all of the assets, given that three of the funds are only interested in the foreclosed properties and the four others only want to purchase the non-performing loans (NPLs).

On the advice of KPMG and Alantra, Sabadell has set itself the objective of divesting toxic assets worth €10.8 billion this month, before the summer. That figure is equivalent to 72% of the bank’s total problem assets, which amounted to €14.9 billion at the end of the first quarter. Of that total figure, €7.5 billion are doubtful balances and €7.4 billion are foreclosed.

This volume of non-performing assets, which is weighing down on the entity’s balance sheet, has been packaged into four portfolios called Challenger (€5 billion), Coliseum (€2.5 billion), Makalu (€2.4 billion) and Galerna (€900 million). Just over half, €5.8 billion, are assets inherited from the purchase of CAM, and, as such, they form part of the Asset Protection Scheme (EPA). As a result, the divestment of three of the portfolios (Coliseum, Galerna and Makalu) must first be approved by the Deposit Guarantee Fund (FGD), which is the entity that will cover 80% of the losses generated by those protected portfolios.

Original story: Expansión (by Sergi Saborit)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Sabadell Set to Sell €10bn of Toxic RE in June After Receiving Deluge of Binding Offers

25 May 2018 – El Confidencial

Banco Sabadell has entered the home stretch of its mission to sell all of its toxic property, a rapid process that is expected to be completed in June. The entity has received a deluge of binding offers for the four portfolios that it currently has up for sale – Coliseum, Challenger, Makalu and Galerna – which have a combined gross value of more than €10 billion.

The first two portfolios contain foreclosed assets (REOs) and include Cerberus, Blackstone, Lone Star and Oaktree as potential buyers (in the final round); meanwhile, the other two portfolios comprise secured loans with real estate collateral (NPLs) and their potential buyers include Deutsche Bank, Lone Star, Bain Capital and Oaktree, according to confirmation from several market sources.

These proposals are now with the Steering Committee, which means that, once that body has given its verdict, the process will be passed to the Board of Directors, chaired by Josep Oliu (pictured above, right), which is the body that has to ratify the name of the winner.

In theory, this ruling is going to be issued within a matter of weeks, in June and, in any case, before August. Sources at the entity have declined to comment on either the finalists or the calendar.

Portfolios and the FGD

Having chosen the names of the winners, Sabadell will be able to close the sale of Challenger, the largest of all of these portfolios, with a gross volume of almost €5 billion; it is the only one that does not need approval from the Deposit Guarantee Fund (FGD), given that all of the assets contained therein come from the Catalan entity itself.

By contrast, the €2.5 billion in properties that comprise Coliseum come from the former entity CAM – Caja de Ahorros del Mediterráneo – and, therefore, need to be approved by the FGD, since it would have to cover 80% of the losses. The same applies to Makalu (€2.5 billion in loans) and Galerna (€900 million).

The need to receive this approval means that it is likely that the entity will have to wait until next year to deconsolidate all of these toxic assets, although it will be able to sign a sales agreement conditional upon that authorisation, like BBVA did in the case of the sale agreed with Cerberus last year to transfer all of its property, some of which is also subject to the FGD’s approval.

By contrast, this year, Sabadell could remove almost €5 billion in the form of Challenger from its perimeter, a step forward in terms of fulfilling the requirements of the European Central Bank (ECB), which is putting pressure on Spanish entities to remove the impact of a decade of real estate crisis from their balances sheets.

Solvia is being left out of the sale

At the end of the first quarter, the entity held €14.9 billion in problem assets, down by 17.6% compared to a year earlier, with an average coverage ratio of 55.2% (56.6% for doubtful debt and 53.7% for foreclosed assets), a percentage that serves as a reference for the funds when calculating their offer prices.

With the sale of all of these portfolios, the entity would reduce its real estate exposure to less than €5 billion.  Since the beginning of the crisis, that exposure has been managed by Sabadell’s own servicer: Solvia.

Some of the finalist funds had asked the entity to include Solvia in the transaction, according to Voz Pópuli, but in the end, that possibility has been ruled out by the bank, as it considers that the valuation of its asset manager is higher than the price that would be offered by funds.

In addition, as El Confidencial revealed, the servicer has created its own property developer, Solvia Desarrollos Inmobiliarios, which has €1,252 million in managed assets and which is also finalising an agreement with Oaktree to create a joint venture promoter.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Ruth Ugalde)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Axis: Spain’s Banks Have €31.7bn in Toxic Assets Up For Sale

15 March 2018 – Eje Prime

After a 2017 in which one of the key characteristics of the residential market was the interest from funds in going to banks for property, this year, the trend is set to increase. The investment funds are now being joined by Socimis, which want to take advantage of the rapid and generous divestments that the banks are undertaking of their real estate portfolios.

Pressure from the European Central Bank (ECB) for the financial entities to clean up their balance sheets has meant that they have been rushing, for the last year and a half, to sell almost all of their portfolios of assets and non-performing loans relating to the real estate sector. According to data from the consultancy firm Axis, the banks currently have €31.7 billion in toxic assets up for sale.

This large sum of portfolios up for sale is proving to be the subject of major battles between the main investment funds, the majority of which are international, and which in 2017 managed to close record operations in this sense. The sale by Santander of property inherited from Popular to Blackstone for €10 billion, and the agreement reached between BBVA and the fund Cerberus for €4 billion to transfer assets from the real estate firm Anida, fired the starting gun for a race that is going to reach its cruising speed this year, according to Cinco Días.

Spain is the third country in the Eurozone by volume of doubtful loans, with €136 billion and a default rate of 5.7%, a percentage that is above the European average of 5.1%. According to the Bank of Spain, non-performing loans held by the banks at the end of 2016 amounted to €190 billion.

The oligopoly of the servicers 

Axis details that the assets of the banks under the management of the servicers are no longer going to be a question of five, since some of the players may come out of the equation. In 2018, “there will be a greater concentration in the market, with the sale of some of the servicers”, according to the study.

Until now, 80% of the portfolios have been managed by the banks and funds, as demonstrated in the cases of Altamira, which is controlled by Banco Santander; Haya and Anida, companies that are both linked to Cerberus; Anticipa and Aliseda, which are both owned by Blackstone; and Servihabitat and Solvia, which are owned by CaixaBank and Banco Sabadell, respectively.

In addition to the aforementioned funds, Axis adds others with a presence in the Spanish market such as Lone Star, Oaktree, Deutsche Bank and Fortress, which will try to acquire one or more of the portfolios for sale.

Funds and Socimis are going to be searching to generate returns this year, above all, in the rental market, which with yields of 8% “is going to be the product with the most attractive investment prospects”, according to Axis.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Cerberus Wins Bid To Manage & Sell Bankia’s Expanded Real Estate Portfolio

5 March 2018 – La Información

Cerberus has fought off competition from Lindorff to become one of the new Bankia’s partners, responsible for managing and selling its portfolio of foreclosed assets, which now exceeds €5 billion. The group chaired by José Ignacio Goirigolzarri has opted to continue with its existing partner in the end, to the detriment of the partner that has been working with BMN since 2014, for reasons that may go beyond the mere economic bid offered by both, indicate reliable sources.

Bankia’s alliance with Cerberus dates back to 2013, when it acquired its real estate firm Habitat on which it built Haya Real Estate, the servicer, which is now finalising its debut on the stock market after having also been awarded contracts to manage the portfolios of BBVA, Liberbank, Cajamar and Sareb (…).

At that time, almost all of Spain’s financial institutions opted to divest their “servicers” in light of the need to accelerate the sale of their toxic assets and the large appetite of specialist funds to grow in size and contracts. BMN’s story is similar. In 2014, it sold its real estate asset company Inmare to Aktua for €40 million. Aktua was Banesto’s former real estate servicer company, which Lindorff acquired from Centerbridge Partners in a close battle with Apollo and Activum SG Capital Management in 2016.

The Norwegian fund, which is itself currently immersed in an integration process with Intrum Justitia, thus took over the management of the real estate assets of the banking group led by Caja Murcia, as well as of those transferred by BMN to Sareb. The entity now also works for Ibercaja and with certain portfolios from entities such as Santander.

Haya Real Estate and Lindorff’s contracts with their respective clients are similar because they both impose a decade-long period of exclusivity, forcing Bankia to review its position following the absorption of BMN, just like with other types of joint ventures. The bank is going to proceed first to break the contracts and indemnify each partner for a sum estimated to amount to €100 million, according to Expansión, and then it plans to close a new agreement with the winning party. Both partners may have submitted similar bids although it is understood that Aktua offered an exclusively commercial service whilst the agreement with Haya Real Estate included the absorption of the workforce.

The transfer of employees

The new Bankia Group’s property portfolio has a gross value of €5.1 billion, as at the end of 2017, compared with €3.5 billion registered a year earlier excluding BMN’s exposure. The entity has a cushion of provisions that covers 35.9% of its portfolio value in such a way that it could afford to dispose of the portfolio at 64.1% of its initial value without incurring losses. The bulk – 62% – are homes associated with foreclosed mortgages and another 16% are properties received for debt in construction or property development – 48% of that proportion corresponds to land -.

BFA’s subsidiary reduced its problematic assets by 9.9% YoY last year – excluding the incorporation of BMN’s exposure onto its balance sheet – thanks, above all, to sales amounting to €427 million (€5.55 million corresponded to gains) and a 15.3% reduction in doubtful risks.

With the integration of BMN, the bank is being forced to review and rethink all of the contracts where exclusive suppliers operate in both networks. It has already resolved one relating to life insurance, which will see it discontinue BMN’s relationship with Aviva – it will pay that firm €225 million by way of compensation – in favour of Mapfre, which was also victorious in 2016 when the bank came across another duplicate alliance, for the first time (with the same British insurance company, which was also a historical ally of Bancaja). It still needs to settle a similar agreement with Caser, and put the finishing touches to its deals with Lindorff and Cerberus.

Original story: La Información (by Eva Contreras)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Deutsche Bank: BBVA & Unicaja Cut Their Toxic Assets By 15% In 2017

14 November 2017 – Expansión

Deutsche Bank report / Sales to institutional investors of non-performing loans and properties allowed BBVA to reduce its stock by €4,589 million. Meanwhile, Unicaja has decreased its load by €818 million.

The clean up of the banks’ balance sheets is picking up speed thanks to the increasingly common sales of large property portfolios to specialist funds.

Between January and September, the average decrease in the stock of the large banks amounted to 6%; moreover, that figure reached 15% in the case of BBVA España. The next entity in the ranking was Unicaja, with a decrease of 14%.

During the third quarter, Santander España distorted the statistics with the sale of 51% of Popular’s toxic assets (€30,000 million) to Blackstone.

Project Jaipur

BBVA has closed several institutional sales in recent months. One of them, Project Jaipur, was sold to Cerberus, the fund with which it is now negotiating a macro-operation, which would include the sale of its real estate platform Anida. That portfolio comprises loans to property developers backed by real estate guarantees and has a gross nominal value of €600 million.

In February, BBVA sold a batch of 3,500 properties to the fund Blackstone. Another one of the representative operations of the year was the sale of 14 office buildings to Oaktree for €200 million.

Unicaja has sold several plots of land to various real estate developers in recent months. “Unlike in other quarters, during the third quarter of the year, most of the reduction in the banks’ problem assets came from the sale of foreclosed properties, despite the substantial decrease in activity in August”, says the recent report from Deutsche Bank.

Between June and September, CaixaBank was the most active entity, with sales worth €380 million.

The report cites several factors to explain the intensification of this real estate clean up. The first is the increase in the coverage ratio of these toxic assets on the banks’ balance sheets. “The volume of sales is directly linked to the coverage ratio”, it says.

The second is that many of these sales are generating capital gains. According to the data compiled by Deutsche Bank, Unicaja made €40 million in the third quarter and CaixaBank and Sabadell earned €6 million and €7 million, respectively. “These gains will allow them to accelerate future sales”, says the report.

Final quarter

The last quarter of the year tends to be the strongest for these types of operations. Sareb has put a package of doubtful loans up for sale, the vast majority of which are unsecured, for €2,600 million. “We expect to see an additional effort from the banking institutions to reduce the stock at year end. Having said that, the political uncertainty in Cataluna and the upcoming elections may affect prices and/or cause delays in institutional sales”, says Deutsche Bank, which forecasts further stock decreases of 15% in 2018 and 2019. According to its data, CaixaBank, Santander and BBVA are the banks with the highest volume of toxic assets. Since 2015, BBVA has decreased its real estate balance by 27% and Unicaja by 24%.

Original story: Expansión (by R. Lander)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Deloitte: Hotel Inv’t Will Exceed €3,000M In 2017

7 November 2017 – Expansión

The extraordinary tourism data in Spain, the interest from investors in real estate assets and the purchase by international funds of hotel portfolios has catapulted investment in the Spanish hotel segment so far this year to €2,600 million. That figure is 21% higher than the total amount recorded in 2016, and is very close to the record figure of €2,700 million recorded in 2015, according to The Hotel Property Handbook report, prepared by Deloitte España.

In this way, the hotel sector now accounts for 35% of total real estate investment in the tertiary sector (non-residential assets) in Spain. The firm forecasts that, by the end of this year, the investment volume figure will have easily surpassed the €3,000 million threshold.

In terms of the main operations of the year, the purchase by the US fund Blackstone of the HI Partners hotel portfolio, comprising 14 establishments, from Sabadell for €630 million and the acquisition by the British fund London & Regional of four Starmel hotels – a joint company formed by Meliá and Starwood Capital in 2015 – for €230 million, have given the investment figure a real boost.

Record operations

These operations have been accompanied by several one-off hotel transactions, such as Edificio España, which was acquired by RIU in June for €272 million (…).

Other noteworthy operations so far this year include the purchase of Hotel Silken in Barcelona by the British fund Benson Elliot for €80 million and the acquisition of 55% of Hotel Diagonal Mar in Barcelona by Axa for €80 million.

For Javier García-Mateo, Partner at Deloitte Financial Advisory, institutional investors are seeing the opportunity to build large portfolios of holiday hotels in Spain, to integrate them into their international platforms in the Caribbean, South America and South-East Asia, developing a direct channel and obtaining greater negotiating power with tour operators. “In the end, Spain is establishing itself as the world’s main tourist market”, he says.

In this sense, we are seeing the natural migration of traditional hotel owners, who are divesting property to focus on management, such as in the case of the Meliá chain, which is making way for overseas investors who have greater financial muscle and so can launch more ambitious projects, explains Patricia Pana at Deloitte Financial Advisory.

In this context, the large tour operators are also participating in the investment fever and are buying assets in order to carry out a vertical integration of their business (…).

Interest from investors is partly driven by the record number of visitor arrivals – more than 84 million international tourists are forecast to visit Spain this year – and the strong evolution of key performance indicators such as the average daily rate (ADR), revenue per available room (RevPAR) and the occupancy rate.

Peak returns

Specifically, the ADR in Spain reached an average of €82.30 in 2016, up by 5% YoY; the occupancy rate rose by four percentage points to 66%; and RevPAR increased by 10% to €53.90.

The challenges for the sector now include improving the hotel portfolio to allow for an increase in prices. “If we compare our hotels with those in other urban and vacation destinations, the price per room of Spanish hotels still has a lot of potential, provided that renovation and transformation projects are carried out with the help of the main operators”, says Ana Granado, Director at Deloitte Financial Advisory (…).

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Fitch: Banks Will Continue To Discount Their Foreclosed Assets For 2+ Years

24 October 2017 – Expansión

Fitch report / Financial institutions are selling their real estate portfolios at discounts of between 50% and 70%; those levels are expected to be maintained for at least the next two years.

“We do not expect to see a close correlation between the improvement in the macroeconomic situation and lower discounts on the sale of portfolios of foreclosed real estate assets by the banks. In fact, we expect those discounts to remain at their current levels for at least the next two years”, said Alberto Faraco and Juan David García, analysts at the ratings agency Fitch.

Spain’s banks still hold significant volumes of real estate, inherited from the crisis, which they must get rid of by order of the supervisor. To accelerate the process, entities are selling portfolios of foreclosed real estate assets to international funds and, in exchange, they are demanding significant discounts with respect to the initial value of the properties.

According to Fitch, these discounts amount to between 50% and 70% of their value and the probability that they will continue for a while yet is high. “It is likely that not even the better tone of the Spanish real estate sector will lead to an increase in the prices at which the banks are selling their portfolios of foreclosed assets, given that there is a significant over-supply, which is exercising considerable pressure”, said Faraco and García, authors of the most recent report published by Fitch.

“The foreclosed properties are competing against a stock of around 500,000 recently built homes, which are ready for sale. Moreover, they are suffering from downwards pressure in terms of prices due to the profitability premiums that buyers require of the banks to cover uncertainties in the process”, said the analysts. The entities’ real estate portfolios carry a series of risks that can detract from the profitability obtained by a potential buyer, such as the fact that the dwelling cannot be accessed until the inhabitant is evicted.

Homes that the banks are responsible for placing directly with end buyers are treated differently. Such properties are sold with lower discounts but require much more time and resources go shift, something that the entities, under pressure from the supervisor to decrease their share of non-performing assets, cannot afford.

What Fitch does expect is a reduction in the number of new assets being foreclosed by the banks, in line with the improvement in the macroeconomic situation in Spain. “In this environment, it is also fundamental that the banks adopt a new strategy that favours handling doubtful loans through debt restructurings rather than as foreclosures”, said the experts.

Localised bubbles

Besides the banks’ assets, Fitch is observing an overall improvement in the fundamentals of the Spanish real estate market, with prices on the rise. “Despite the recovery, we do not see the risk of a new real estate bubble in Spain arising anytime soon. There is a large supply of homes that still needs to be absorbed. Nevertheless, we are seeing very localised bubbles in premium areas of certain neighbourhoods of Madrid, Barcelona and the Balearic Islands”, they explained.

Original story: Expansión (by Andrés Stumpf)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Project Inés: Deutsche Finalises Purchase Of Sareb’s €400M Portfolio

17 October 2017 – Voz Pópuli

Sareb is at a critical point in one of its most important transactions of the year. The bad bank is negotiating with Deutsche Bank regarding the sale of the largest portfolio it has brought onto the market in the last 12 months. The portfolio in question is Project Inés and it was initially worth €500 million, but its final perimeter will amount to €400 million, according to financial sources consulted by Voz Pópuli. Oaktree and Bank of America also participated in the bid until the final round, but their offers were lower than Deutsche Bank’s bid. Sources at Sareb declined to comment.

Those three international investors were the final candidates after dozens of other funds interested in the operation fell by the wayside. One of the last candidates to be ruled out was KKR.

The portfolio comprises unpaid loans secured by residential assets in Madrid, Cataluña, Andalucía and Zaragoza. The inclusion of assets in Cataluña, despite everything that is currently happening in that autonomous region, caused many of the funds to hesitate and deduct value from their bids, according to the financial sources consulted by this newspaper.

These types of operations are key for Sareb to accelerate the rate of asset sales, given that it has been given the mandate of divesting €50,000 million of problem assets within 15 years; that period started at the end of 2012. The latest figures show that the cumulative divestment to the end of 2016 amounted to almost €10,000 million, leaving a balance of €40,134 million on the books.

Other operations

Project Inés is not the only operation that Sareb has underway. It has also put a portfolio worth €400 million on the market through an online platform for funds. On the portal, investors can bid for loans on an individual basis (Project Dubai), like they did with Haya Real Estate last year.

Moreover, it has just put another portfolio, known as Project Tambo, on the market through CBRE. That portfolio contains non-performing loans to property developers, worth €300 million.

Sareb normally accumulates lots of operations of this kind at the end of the year. In 2016, it sold seven portfolios after the summer, for a total combined value of almost €1,300 million. The largest portfolio was Project Eloise, which was awarded to Goldman Sachs.

Deutsche Bank and Bank of America are two regulars in these types of operations. In fact, the German bank already acquired two small portfolios from Sareb at the end of last year, known as Project Sevilla and Project Marina, for a combined total of €160 million.

Original story: Voz Pópuli (by Jorge Zuloaga)

Translation: Carmel Drake

The IMF Commends Sareb’s “Effective” Management & Divestment Progress

10 October 2017 – El Diario

On Friday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) commended the “effective” management of Sareb and its progress in the asset divestment process, which has enabled the real estate company to liquidate 22% of its portfolio and 20% of its debt in its four years of life.

“To date, Sareb has fulfilled its objectives quite well, and the review of its business strategy seems to be well designed”, acknowledged the supervisory body in its latest report evaluating the Spanish financial sector.

Nevertheless, it adds that the company, created in 2012 to help with the clean-up of the banking sector, will face challenges in the future.

In its report published on Friday, the IMF refers to: the highly sensitive nature of Sareb’s activity to the evolution of real estate prices; the financial expenses that the entity must pay to service the debt that it took on to purchase assets back in the day; and the “stiff competition” from the banks, which are also divesting their real estate portfolios.

Even so, the body endorses the progress that Sareb has made to reduce the perimeter of assets received from the financial institutions by so much, as well as to service its commitments to repay its debt, which is guaranteed by the Spanish Treasury.

For the IMF, behind this progress, is the “effective” approach that Sareb applies to managing the portfolio, and which includes strategies for “the transformation of loans into properties, the recovery of loans, the sale of assets and the reactivation and sale of suspended projects”.

In the opinion of the institution, which is headquartered in Washington, Sareb is continuing to play a “critical role in the preservation of financial stability”, and therefore recommends greater involvement of the authorities in the preparation of the entity’s business plan.

The report that the IMF published on Friday focuses on analysing the weight that doubtful loans still play in the Spanish banking sector, which is still high despite the transfers that were made to Sareb when it was created.

In this sense, the international body echoes the initiative that the so-called “bad bank” has launched to give greater dynamism and transparency to the sale of loans, through an online platform, which is now operational, albeit in the pilot phase, on the company’s website.

Original story: El Diario

Translation: Carmel Drake

Blackstone Builds Rental Home Giant In Spain

18 May 2017 – Cinco Días

The fund Blackstone is the largest property owner in the world and has been backing real estate Spain for a while now. And, it is going to continue to do so in the short to medium term. For the time being, the fund’s plans involve becoming a giant in the rental housing segment and it is already starting to show its investment strategy through several companies, including three new Socimis.

Blackstone’s first major step was to create the servicer Anticipa Real Estate, under the structure of the former entity Cataluña Caixa Inmobiliaria. This asset management platform purchased 40,000 mortgages from the extinct Catalan entity for €4,123 million in 2015. Since then, it has continued acquiring these kinds of mortgage portfolios, to accumulate a total investment to date of almost €7,000 million.

The latest acquisitions made by Blackstone – which is headquartered in New York – have included a €400 million portfolio of loans backed by property developer collateral and another portfolio from BBVA comprising 3,500 properties, for around €300 million.

This entire portfolio of mortgage debt and properties is managed by Anticipa, a company that is led by its CEO, Eduard Mendiluce, a veteran director in the sector. (…).

The work that the servicer performs for Blackstone involves managing the loans granted by banks to individuals and property developers. In many cases, that task ends with the “dación en pago” or foreclosure of the property or development, due to non-payment. The company says that it treats each client on a case by case basis, and the process often means it has to accept a discount on the debt.

Of the portfolios acquired from banks, “daciones en pago” and foreclosures, Anticipa already owns 12,000 properties, which are leased out (in around 75% of cases) and put up for sale. “The idea is for it to become one of the large owners of rental housing in Spain”, explains a spokesperson.

The opportunistic fund – which purchases problem assets at a discount – is planning to remain in the Spanish market beyond the short term, and has absolutely no interest in selling its businesses within the next 5-7 years, but rather intends to benefit from the upwards trend in property.

To create the residential giant, the US firm has started to create vehicles to which it will transfer properties for rent. The first of these companies is Albirana Properties, a Socimi that started to trade on the Alternative Investment Market in March. That listed investment company, which benefits from certain tax advantages, already manages 5,000 homes.

But it is only the first to be listed. Other Socimis, namely Pegarena and Tourmalet, which have already been constituted and are already owned by several Blackstone funds, will follow. These firms, in turn, operate using Anticipa as their manager. (…).

Packaging up these homes into different companies will facilitate the sale of those companies in the future to various interested parties.

Blackstone decided to back the rental sector rather than the sales market at a time of change in the type of demand, according to experts in the sector. In particular, the generation of millennials, for cultural reasons – are more inclined to live without the tie of a mortgage – and, above all, the difficulties being faced by young people to obtain loans given the job insecurity.

Unlike other Socimis that specialise in rental housing, the management of assets by Albirana is more complex, given that its properties are relatively scattered geographically, as they proceed from individual mortgages. Typically these companies opt to manage entire buildings, but Blackstone’s company has specialised in what is known as granular management.

Currently, the majority of these properties are located in Cataluña. They are followed – at some distance – by homes in Madrid, Comunidad Valenciana and Andalucía.

Original story: Cinco Días (by Alfonso Simón Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake