Santander Transfers 400,000-m2 Land Bank to Landmark Iberia

9 July 2019 – Richard D. K. Turner

Banco Santander has transferred approximately 400,000 square meters of land to its newly incorporated real estate developer, Landmark Iberia. The land could provide space for up to 4,000 new homes.

The portfolio, however, consists of a range of types of land running from ready-to-develop land to rural lands not yet zoned for development. Santander created Landmark at the beginning of this year.

Original Story: El Confidencial – RuthUgalde

Voyager: Sabadell Launches Sale Of €1,000M NPL Portfolio

2 August 2017 – Expansión

Banco Sabadell is accelerating the sale of the non-performing assets accumulated on its balance sheet during the crisis. In just three years, the entity chaired by Josep Oliu has managed to cut its doubtful loan balance in half, which means that it has divested non-performing loans amounting to almost €9,000 million since 2014. In this way, in June of that year, the bank held €17,386 million in problem assets on its balance sheet, compared to the current figure of €8,541 million, according to the accounts published last Friday.

This effort has been made possible by the fact that Sabadell has been one of the most active entities in the sale of debt portfolios in recent years (…). In the last few months alone, it has managed to divest almost €2,000 million through the sale of Projects Normandy and Gregal (…). In addition, the bank has just engaged Deloitte to sound out the market as to whether an appetite exists for another €1,000 million portfolio, known as Voyager.

Gregal and Normandy

Project Gregal contained non-performing loans amounting to around €800 million and was segmented into three sub-portfolios. The last one was sold this week to the fund Grove Capital Management, which has taken over a batch of doubtful loans granted to SMEs. The other two Gregal packages were awarded to D.E. Shaw and Lindorff (…).

On the other hand, at the end of July, the bank managed to definitively close the sale of the Normandy portfolio (€950 million) to Oaktree. That portfolio comprised loans linked to real estate developments and so the amount paid was much higher and is reported to have amounted to around €300 million, which would represent a discount of around 70% (…).

Original story: Expansión (by Sergi Saborit)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Sabadell To Release 800 New Homes Onto The Market

27 July 2015 – Expansión

The improved outlook regarding the performance of the Spanish economy is reflected in the real estate market, where prices are stabilising and even increasing in certain areas of Madrid and Barcelona. And the stocks of newly constructed homes are drying up in some towns, due to a lack of new developments in recent years.

Against this background, cranes are returning to the domestic landscape and banks are taking on a new role in the market for real estate development, as they aim to generate returns from the land and half-finished construction projects that they foreclosed in exchange for debt payments. And Sabadell is playing a very active role. It will release 800 homes onto the market over the coming months.

The bank led by Josep Oliu is currently developing eleven of its own real estate urbanisations, most of which are located in Barcelona, Andalucía and Levante, but also in País Vasco and Asturias. The construction work will be completed during the remainder of 2015 and 2016, and will culminate in the release of more than 400 homes – flats and houses – onto the market, over several stages, with some of the properties already being sold.

Beside these developments, which spread across the country and whose degree of completion ranges between 15% and 100%, three other new developments will be started after the summer in Madrid – in the towns of Colmenar Viejo and Alcalá de Henares – and Levante. Once finished, these urbanisations will contain approximately 400 homes.

During the first half of 2015, 46% of Sabadell’s property sales were made in cash, whilst 37% were financed by the bank and the remaining 17% were funded using loans from other entities. In fact, the Catalan bank is offering buyers both variable rate and fixed rate mortgages – at Euribor plus 1.6% and 2.9%, respectively.

The entity’s real estate and mortgage offer is in line with those of other banks such as Santander and BBVA, which are developing 600 different urbanisations at the moment, as well as with that of Sareb, which will release 1,200 homes onto the market during the remainder of 2015, in some of the 30 developments that it completed last year and the 42 that it currently has on-going.

Signs of recovery

After an intense and long-lasting period adjustment, both in terms of activity and prices following the burst of the real estate bubble, the sector is now showing clear signs of recovery, to the extent that foreign funds have also entered the sector for the development of homes. But, is there a risk of excess supply?

Residential development is likely to grow over the next few years, says Javier López Torres, the partner responsible for the real estate sector at KPMG in Spain. And there is still room for more new builds without any risk of a new real estate bubble, says an expert from Andbank, Rocío Ledesma. And Sabadell wants to maximise the opportunities in the market through its development company Solvia.

Solvia is dedicated not only to the development of urbanisations owned by the bank, it also works for third parties. It is a servicer with assets under management amounting to €28,000 million, and it offers services ranging from the management of loan portfolios, to the development of land, as well as the management and administration of assets. In fact, Sareb awarded its first asset management contract to Solvia.

Original story: Expansión (by Alicia Crespo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Green Light Given to ‘La Ciudad de la Justicia’: Madrid Needs €771m For Its ‘Megaproject’

17 February 2015 – El Confidencial

The Official Bulletin of the Community of Madrid reflects the economic conditions that the Government requires of the concession companies that want to bid to construct the future judicial offices in Valdebebas.

On Monday, the Official Bulletin of the Community of Madrid reflected the economic conditions that the Government of Ignacio González is imposing on the companies that want to construct the new judicial offices in Valdebebas. Two months before the regional elections, the Community of Madrid calls for a €771.7 million contract for a “megaproject” that will not see the light until 2019. The initial bidding budget for the works to be built in the North of Madrid will exceed €1,700 million, according to estimates reflected in the public document. The companies that are interested in “bidding” for the project have until 1 April to submit their bids to the Presidential Council, led by Salvador Victoria.

The total estimated cost of the project is divided into two parts. The Community of Madrid has already invested €288 million in the site: on the land, the tunnels that have now been constructed and the Institute of Legal Medicine, which has already been built. Therefore, the chosen companies would only have to contribute the remaining €483 million to take the total to €771 million. Construction of this project is expected to begin in July next year and the site will be operational from summer 2019.

The Community of Madrid will grant a 30-year administrative concession to the winning firm, to whom it will pay a fee of around €45 million, which is the amount it currently pays for the rental of the 28 judicial offices around Madrid and their associated services. The concession will begin from the day that the building work contracts are awarded, which will be in July, and not from its completion date (scheduled for four years later), as is usually the case, which means that the Community will have a four-year grace period and the fee will be paid on a linear basis over 26 years.

(….)

New jobs

With an area of 200,000 square metres, the Ciudad de la Justicia (City of Justice) will be located in the Parque de Valdebebas and will house the 356 courts of the Judicial District of Madrid, 554 judges and magistrates, 202 prosecutors, 362 court clerks, more than 5,000 people in the service of the Administration of Justice, more than 42,000 lawyers and 1,719 barristers, in addition to the citizens. According to the Community of Madrid’s calculations, the building work at the Ciudad de la Justicia will result in the creation of 2,200 jobs and a minimal improvement in Madrid’s GDP.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Ana I. Gracia)

Translation: Carmel Drake