Retailing Giant Opts to Sell Real Estate Assets Through El Corte Inglés Real Estate

8 October 2019 While the Spanish company El Corte Inglés is one of the biggest retailers in the world, it is also one of the large owners of real estate in Spain.  The firm has assets valued at more than €17 billion. The retailer has given up on a plan, called Operation Green, that the consultancy PwC had designed for the portfolio. Instead, it is now planning on channelling the assets through a new real estate subsidiary, El Corte Inglés Real Estate.  

Original Story: El Confidencial – Ruth Ugalde

Photo: EFE

Adaptation/Translation: Richard D. K. Turner

Project Green: More Details about El Corte Inglés’s Property Divestment Plan

2 April 2019 – El Confidencial

More details have been revealed about the real estate portfolio that El Corte Inglés put up for sale last week. According to information presented in the blind teaser prepared by PwC, the portfolio known as Project Green includes 95 non-strategic assets and spans a constructed surface area of 998,000 m2 with another 228,000 m2 in available land.

The portfolio is split into three completely separate blocks. The first comprises 11 shopping centres. The second comprises three office buildings and 65 other assets, including 5 more shopping centres, located across six provinces. The third contains 16 plots of land, with the aforementioned combined surface area of 228,000 m2.

According to the teaser, 50% of the shopping centres, offices, parking lots and premises contained in the portfolio are concentrated in Madrid, Barcelona, Málaga and Sevilla.

Moreover, the department store giant has expressed its willingness to remain as the tenant in 11 of the 16 shopping centres for between three and five years, although that period is regarded as too short by experts given the incompatibility of the properties with other uses (they have no windows, and so, are unsuitable for use as hotels or hospitals).

ECI has also said it would be willing to continue in two of the office buildings. Another block is leased to a third party for a gross annual income of €1.6 million and there are eight other premises whose rental amounts to €1.8 million.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Agustín Marco)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

El Corte Inglés Reduces the First Phase of its RE Sales Process to €1bn

29 March 2019 – El Confidencial

El Corte Inglés is refining the plan for its real estate divestment strategy. After hiring Javier Catena as the new Director of Real Estate, the group has decided to sell off its assets in phases and will begin by activating the sale of 95 assets, from an initial perimeter of 130.

The department store giant has engaged PwC to open the tender process for investors, with the aim of receiving final offers by the end of April.

The revised portfolio includes 14 commercial premises, 16 plots of land and 65 assets of various types, such as flats and parking spaces, which together span a total surface area of 1.2 million m2 and which are primarily located in Madrid, Barcelona, Málaga and Sevilla.

Investors may bid for all or part of this first portfolio, or even for specific assets only. Most of the properties for sale are being offered with the option of a sale and leaseback arrangement, whereby the vendor would remain as the tenant following the sale.

By reducing the perimeter of this first phase to 95 properties, ECI has decreased the proceeds that it expects to receive from RE sales this year to €1 billion, compared to the figure of between €1.5 billion and €2 billion that it had announced in December.

Original story: El Confidencial (by R. Ugalde)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

El Corte Inglés Doubles its Assets for Sale to €3bn & Invites Preliminary Offers by End of March

11 March 2019 – El Confidencial

El Corte Inglés has set a deadline of the end of March for interested parties to submit their preliminary bids for its real estate assets. Moreover, it has increased the perimeter of the portfolio from the initial value of between €1.5 billion and €2 billion to €3 billion.

ECI engaged PwC at the end of 2018 to help it define the perimeter, which comprises non-strategic assets, primarily land, offices, logistics platforms and stores.

The portfolio can be divided into three batches, based on on the liquidity of the assets: assets in good locations and with the possibility of being sold quickly (liquid) account for around one third of the perimeter; intermediate assets represent around 15% of the total; and just over half of the portfolio comprises assets that are not very liquid or that are located in complicated areas.

The aim of the sale is to use the funds raised to reduce the distribution group’s debt, which amounted to €3.8 billion at the end of 2017, equivalent to around four times its EBITDA of c. €1 billion.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Jorge Zuloaga & Ruth Ugalde)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Día Engages PwC to Handle the Sale of 300 Supermarkets

22 February 2019 – Idealista

Día is looking for solutions to cushion the impact of its business plan, which forecasts the elimination of up to 2,100 jobs, by selling off its premises. The company has engaged PwC to look for a buyer or buyers for as many stores as possible of the 300 that it plans to close this year.

Día is going to present an Employment Regulation File to the company’s unions, which has already been announced will affect a maximum of 2,100 employees, all in Spain. To minimise the redundancies, the company wants to get rid of the property that it is hoarding in a large number of locations across the country and raise all of the funds that it can.

Most of the dismissals that Día is planning will be concentrated amongst staff in the stores that are going to be closed, in such a way that, to the extent that interested parties can be found to acquire those establishments, they will try to reach an agreement with them to absorb the workforce, or at least, some of it.

Día is whereby returning to PwC after entrusting the firm with a similar task to divest its cash & carry business, Max Descuento, for which it expects to receive almost €50 million.

The Big Four firm, which is making contact with industrial companies interested in acquiring this business, will propose acquiring the stores in batches. Día expects to have closed all of its divestments by the middle of this year.

Original story: Idealista 

Translation: Carmel Drake

El Corte Inglés Considers Creating a Socimi to List its Real Estate Assets on the Stock Market

15 February 2019 – Modaes.es

El Corte Inglés is looking for solutions for its portfolio of real estate assets. The Qatari sheikh Hamad Al Thani, the third largest shareholder in the Madrilenian department store group, has proposed the creation of a Socimi to manage the rental of its assets.

The plan proposed by Al Thani, who entered the company’s share capital last summer, involves creating a company in which El Corte Inglés would own a 51% stake. The remaining 49% of the shares would be listed on the stock market.

The Qatari investor already proposed this solution to the previous President of the group, Dimas Gimeno, but it was not successful then, according to El Economista. For the time being, the Board of Directors of El Corte Inglés has not received a formal petition regarding the plan.

The real estate portfolio of El Corte Inglés is worth €17.1 billion, according to a report from Tinsa. The department stores and hypermarkets are worth €15.0 billion, whilst the warehouses, offices and mixed-use buildings are worth €1.1 billion. Finally, the high street establishments are valued at €1 billion.

It is estimated that, in the event that the operation proposed by the sheikh goes ahead, the valuation of the assets could amount to half their current value, around €8.2 billion, according to Tinsa.

In parallel, the group is continuing to work on the sale of 130 real estate assets worth €2 billion in conjunction with the consultancy firm PwC. The property that El Corte Inglés wants to divest now comprises land, offices and buildings defined as non-strategic. Those assets also include some logistics centres.

The objective of these divestments is to reduce the group’s debt so that it can obtain a level of solvency that will allow it to raise financing in the capital markets at a lower price. In this sense, Núñez de la Rosa, the President of the group, has committed to reducing the group’s liabilities by €1 billion in twelve months.

Currently, the real estate portfolio of El Corte Inglés comprises 94 shopping centres, which account for 87% of the total value of the company’s assets. Two of those properties are valued at more than €500 million each, and another two are worth between €400 million and €500 million each.

The department store group recorded EBITDA of €335 million during the first half of 2018, up by 4.4% YoY. Between January and August, the company recorded turnover of €7.6 billion, up by 0.4% YoY.

Original story: Modaes.es

Translation: Carmel Drake

El Corte Inglés Puts a RE Portfolio Worth Between €1.5bn & €2bn Up For Sale

21 December 2018 – Expansión

El Corte Inglés is preparing to shatter the real estate market. The distribution giant has engaged PwC to sell a mega-portfolio containing 130 properties with a valuation of between €1.5 billion and €2 billion, which would represent the largest divestment undertaken by the company to date.

The operation includes a large variety of assets, all of which are non-strategic, and includes shopping centres (not large department stores), logistics warehouses, supermarkets, offices and land. Once the period for receiving offers has closed and depending on the offers themselves, El Corte Inglés will reserve the right to reduce the size of the portfolio. According to market sources, the firm’s intention is not to find a single buyer but rather to slice up the assets into packages.

Real estate portfolio

The company chaired by Jesús Nuño de la Rosa is whereby accelerating the divestment plan launched to reduce debt with a view to obtaining an investment grade rating from the ratings agencies over the medium term.

El Corte Inglés is one of the main owners of real estate assets in Spain, with a portfolio worth more than €17 billion, larger even than those owned by the large Spanish Socimis, Merlin and Colonial, whose asset portfolios were worth €12.2 billion and €11.2 billion, respectively, as at June, and those of the large real estate companies such as Amancio Ortega’s Pontegadea, whose assets were worth €8.8 billion at the end of 2017.

With this large exposure to property, El Corte Inglés is taking advantage of the investor appetite in the market for real estate assets to clean up its balance sheet. Last year, real estate investment reached a new record with transactions worth €18.7 billion, including corporate operations, which represented an increase of 46%. Excluding purchases by companies, the investment figure also reached a historical maximum of €10.8 billion, according to data from CBRE.

In the framework of this plan, this summer, the company sold its centres in Parquesur and La Vaguada, both in Madrid to Unibail Rodamco, the largest operator of shopping centres in Europe. Those assets have a surface area of 20,000 m2 each and were sold for €160 million.

Original story: Expansión (by R. Arroyo & V. Osorio)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Tech Firm Keysight Leases 2,000 Square Meters of Office Space in PTA

10 October 2018

Iberdrola Inmobiliaria has leased space in its Malaga Business Park, located within the Technological Park of Andalusia (PTA), to the American multinational Keysight.

Malaga is still on a roll. The capital of Malaga is no longer just on the map of the Spanish real estate market because of its residential sector, as evidenced by Iberdrola Inmobiliaria’s rental of 2,200 square meters of offices to the US multinational Keysight Technologies.

The Californian company will take over space in several buildings in the Malaga Business Park, located within the Technological Park of Andalucía (PTA). The operation is one of the largest this year in the province, by volume, and also completes the occupation of the office complex.

Keysight will now become a neighbour to other large corporations such as PwC, Riplife Gaming Technologies, Unitono and Eurocem, as noted by Iberdrola’s real estate arm. In its entirety, the Malaga Business Park has 18,000 square meters of constructed area.

This most recent transaction is a reflection of the growth of the office market in the city of Malaga, where the occupation of its prime areas exceeds 90%, as EjePrime reported last March. The Malagan office market saw significant demand in the central zone and the financial area of ​​the capital in 2017. In these two areas, the stock of available offices was significantly reduced, which led to an increase in rents to 18 euros per square meter in the central street Larios, according to a report by Savills Aguirre Newman.

Original Story: EjePrime

Translation: Richard Turner

Zambal Socimi Acquires Everis’s Headquarters in Madrid

1 October 2018

Zambal, a socimi managed by the IBA Capital Partner fund, has acquired the Novus Building, the headquarters of Everis, located at 1 Fuente de la Mora (Madrid) for 90 million euros from funds controlled by AXA Im Real Estate.

Market sources explained to Expansión that the price of the transaction, in which the company that owns the property was sold, includes the debt associated with it.

The building, last renovated in 2017, is occupied by Everis NTT Data Company, which occupies 88% of the gross leasable area. In addition to the consultancy, other tenants include Hilti and Eurest.

Novus is located in Manoteras, one of Madrid’s business centres, near the headquarters of Iberdrola, La Caixa and BMW. Overall, the Novus Building has a gross leasable area of 42,945 square meters, divided into five floors of offices, storage areas and common gardens.

The property also has four courtyards and 561 parking spaces. The consultancy Cushman & Wakefield, which had already advised Everis in its leasing operation, and EY Abogados provided services for the seller, while the law firm Garrigues and PwC, the buyer’s financial and tax advisor, advised Zambal.

Other operations

With this transaction, Zambal has strengthened its asset portfolio. The socimi bought two office buildings at the end last year. One is located at 25 Albarracín Street, in the area of Julián Camarillo, in Madrid. The complex is currently leased to the French multinational Atos for about 38 million euros.

The company also acquired an office building located at 77 Avenida de San Luis from Naturgy (formerly Gas Natural) for about €120 million. The gas company is still a tenant. Zambal, created in 2013, debuted on the Alternative Stock Market (MAB) in 2015 and currently has a market capitalisation of 667 million euros.

Original Story: Expansión – Rebeca Arroyo

Photo: zambalspain.com

Translation: Richard Turner

Tristan Capital & Savills IM Buy 6 Office Buildings in Madrid

6 October 2018 – Real Estate Press

Tristan Capital Partners, together with its local operating partner Savills Investment Management, has acquired a portfolio of offices spanning 78,000 m2 in Madrid from the Socimi Inmobiliaria Colonial for the added value fund Episo4.

The portfolio comprises six Grade A office buildings located in established sub-markets outside of the Spanish capital’s business district: Campo de las Naciones, Josefa Valcárcel (A2) and Arroyo de la Vega (A1), as well as Agustín de Foxá, in the district of Chamartín. The portfolio offers immediate and large-scale exposure to the office market in Madrid, as well as a well-diversified tenant mix, and has the capacity of capturing an expected increase in rents.

Nikolay Velev, CEO of Tristan Capital Partners, said: “After several years of solid economic growth, job creation and a shortage of new developments, an imbalance has been generated between supply and demand in the office market in Madrid, which has resulted in a high net absorption of space and a considerable growth in rents. This trend has been particularly strong inside the M-30 and the differential in rents between offices located inside and outside the central district is now at a historical high. We hope that this gap will be reduced over time”.

The local operating partner will be Savills Investment Management with which CCP 5 LL (Tristan’s core-plus fund over the long term) successfully completed the acquisition of the Manoteras business park (Madrid) in 2017 for €103 million.

Fernando Ramírez de Haro, Head of Savills Investment Management in Spain, stated: “We are delighted to expand our relationship with Tristan through this portfolio. The buildings are of an excellent quality and are highly energy efficient. Moreover, they offer modern and flexible spaces, making them ideally positioned to capture the increase in rents and the growth that is expected to take place outside the M-30”.

Tristan Capital and Savills Investment Management have been advised by Savills Aguirre Newman, Uría Menéndez, Currie & Brown and PwC.

Original story: Real Estate Press

Translation: Carmel Drake