The New Winds Group Acquires the Puerta de Chiclana Shopping Centre

6 January 2020 The New Winds Group (NWG), controlled by the Saralegui Reyzabal family (former owner of the Windsor building in Madrid), has reached an agreement to acquire the Puerta de Chiclana shopping centre from the Dutch firm Redevco.

Puerta de Chiclana has an area of 14,839 square meters, along with 1,273 parking spaces. Furthermore, the shopping mall is located 16 kilometres from the centre of Cádiz. The supermarket chain Eroski anchors the asset.

El Grupo New Winds (NWG), controlado por la familia Saralegui Reyzabal (ex-propietario del edificio Windsor en Madrid), ha llegado a un acuerdo para adquirir el centro comercial Puerta de Chiclana de la firma holandesa Redevco.

El centro tiene una superficie de 14.839 metros cuadrados, junto con 1.273 plazas de aparcamiento. El centro comercial se encuentra a 16 kilómetros del centro de Cádiz. La cadena de supermercados Eroski ancla el activo.

Original Story: modaes.es – P. R. D.

Translation/Summary: Richard D. Turner

Redevco on the Hunt for Mixed-Use Buildings to Join the Rental Housing Bandwagon

3 June 2019 – El Confidencial

A few months ago, Redevco, one of the largest players in the commercial real estate sector in Europe, announced the launch of a €500 million fund aimed at creating a pan-European portfolio of 2,500 rental homes. The aim is to focus primarily on the Netherlands and Germany, but with Spain and the UK accounting for a significant share.

In Spain, the company is now analysing various operations with the aim of closing one or more during the second half of this year. The shopping centre specialist is considering all kinds of strategies, from acquiring properties already for rent to teaming up with property developers and buying assets to renovate.

It is mainly focusing on mixed-used properties in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Bilbao, with an average investment volume of around €20 million per asset. Its aim is to acquire entire properties, rather than small or dispersed assets and it is looking for two-bedroom homes with an average monthly rent of €1,000.

In Spain, Redevco’s commercial portfolio comprises 32 properties worth €800 million. It also operates a joint venture with Ares to invest €500 million in shopping centres, which currently owns the Mercado de San Miguel and Parque Corredor, both in Madrid.

Original story: El Confidencial (by R. Ugalde)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

TPG, Round Capital & Ares Enter Final Round of Bidding for Témpore

12 March 2019 – El Independiente

Sareb has reactivated the sale of its Socimi Témpore Properties and the funds TPG, Round Capital and Ares are some of the candidates in the final round of bidding.

The bad bank was close to signing the transaction last year but called it off due to a lack of transparency. Then, it was the US investment fund TPG, shareholder of companies such as Spotify, Airbnb and Burger King, who was the likely buyer of Témpore, which manages 2,249 residential homes worth €338 million.

Now, TPG is back in the final round of the new process, this time against two opponents. The real estate fund Round Hill already has a presence in Spain – just a few weeks ago it launched a joint venture with the fund KKR and the logistics firm Pulsar Properties to buy logistics platforms. Meanwhile, the US fund Ares has also starred in several transactions in Spain, particularly in conjunction with the Dutch real estate firm Redevco.

Témpore closed 2018 with a loss of €384,394, but is forecast to generate profits from 2020. Its portfolio of residential assets, which is managed by Azora, generated rental income of €7.3 million last year. Moreover, 80% of its assets are located in the metropolitan areas of major capitals and the rest are in areas with significant rental demand, such as Valencia, Sevilla, Zaragoza, Málaga and Almería.

Original story: El Independiente (by Ana Antón)

Translation: Carmel Drake

The ‘Mercado de San Miguel’ Goes up for Sale Again for a Record Price: €100M

1 March 2019 – El Confidencial

The Mercado de San Miguel is up for sale again almost two years after being acquired by the joint venture between Redevco and Ares, which paid more than €70 million for the property. After repositioning the asset and increasing the rents, Ares has decided to exit the operation and reap the rewards of its investment (…). Nevertheless, the Dutch manager is not willing to divest its stake in this unique asset.

The expectations of the US fund in terms of the market value of the asset amount to around €100 million, which would represent a gain of 30%. If achieved, that figure would once again shatter all of the records in the real estate market. It is worth noting that the previous sale was the most expensive transaction per square metre ever paid in the Spanish real estate market.

For each one of its 1,200 square metres, the purchasers paid €60,000 (…). If another sale is signed, the records would be smashed again: at more than €80,000/m2.

The sources consulted by this newspaper explain that Ares has decided to divest the asset and that if Redevco wants to continue, then it will have to find another partner or acquire the fund’s stake. There is not going to be an organised sales process, but rather the operation is moving off-market (…).

Revaluation of the asset

As both companies announced in a statement in October last year, the joint venture has improved the yield on the property through their active management and has added value to the asset by attracting new gastronomic offerings, such as Rocambolesc by Jordi Roca, a 3-Michelin star pastry chef; Paella, by Rodrigo de la Calle, another chef with 1 Michelin star (…); Kirei, by Ricardo Sanz (…) and Tacos, Margaritas & Punto, by Roberto Ruiz, chef at Punto MX (…).

Those gastronomic offerings are provided alongside the traditional meat, fish and fruit stands, which offer first-rate products for which the market is so well known (…).

Original story: El Confidencial (by E. Sanz & C. Hernanz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Deutsche Bank, APG & CBRE GI Enter Spain’s Residential Rental Market

7 December 2018 – Expansión

The large international investors have placed their focus on the residential market and, specifically, on the rental segment. The success of this sector, together with labour mobility, the difficult access to housing and changes in living habits mean that, increasingly, renting is an option over buying in Spain, and that has fuelled interest from capital in the sector.

Blackstone, the largest real estate investor in Spain, was one of the first funds to back the residential rental sector with the purchase of 18 developments comprising 1,860 units from the Municipal Housing and Land Company of Madrid (EMVS) in 2013, but it has not been the only one. The Dutch pension fund APG, in conjunction with Renta Corporación; the German bank Deutsche Bank; and the international fund manager CBRE GI have been some of the most committed investors in this market in recent months.

In this way, APG reached an agreement in the spring of 2017 with the Catalan real estate company Renta Corporación to launch Vivenio, a Socimi specialising in housing, with the aim of acquiring assets worth €1 billion in Madrid, Barcelona and the provincial capitals. The Socimi is going to close a particularly active year for acquisitions, with a total investment of €400 million and is planning to repeat that amount in 2019 to reach a total portfolio of €1 billion in just over two years. One of the largest purchases it has made this year was the batch of 1,100 homes that belonged to the manager Aquila Capital, headquartered in Hamburg, for €240 million.

With the aim of diversifying its portfolio and entering this growing segment, the international fund manager CBRE GI joined forces with Azora, the Spanish manager founded by Concha Osácar and Fernando Gumuzio, with experience in this sector, and the New York investment firm Madison to invest €750 million over the next two or three years. That three-way alliance started with a portfolio of 65 buildings and a total of 6,458 homes and has the aim of reaching, at least, 10,000 units.

Another large investor that is betting heavily on the Spanish residential sector is DWS, the asset management subsidiary of the German bank Deutsche Bank, which has prepared a budget of €500 million to acquire between 1,000 and 2,000 homes in Spain. In that case, it is backing new build developments and it will do so through three formulae: delegated development, the acquisition of construction projects from other property developers and direct development. The objective is to maintain the assets in its portfolio and rent them out. In that case, the vehicle will not be a Socimi because German regulation of the funds from which the capital proceeds do not allow that. 60% of the investment will be made with own funds and the rest, bank financing. The plan is to invest primarily in Madrid and Barcelona, but they will also study plots in cities such as Bilbao and Sevilla, provided the rental market is very liquid.

Meanwhile, Catella Asset Management Iberia (CAMI), the Spanish subsidiary of the Swedish fund manager is intending to reach 2,000 units by 2020. The manager, which will add 1,000 homes to its portfolio at the beginning of 2019, entered the residential rental market two and a half years ago and has invested around €160 million in the business to date. It plans to double that figure to reach 2,000 homes within two years.

Another real estate company that has teamed up with foreign funds to grow in this segment has been Elix. The firm, which is dedicated to the purchase of buildings, their renovation and the sale of homes by unit, has signed an alliance with KKR and Altamar to invest in buildings, renovate them and dedicate them to the rental market. Its aim is to invest €200 million in Madrid and Barcelona through the Socimi Elix Vintage.

Finally, Redevco has created a new fund to invest €500 million in residential projects in several European markets, including Spain (…). Redevco is planning to build a pan-European residential portfolio comprising approximately 2,500 units.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo & Marisa Anglés)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Redevco & Ares Invest €45M in the Renovation of Parque Corredor

26 September 2018 – Eje Prime

Redevco and Ares are pampering their new asset. Redevco Iberian Ventures, the joint venture between the two companies, is going to spend €45 million on the renovation of Parque Corredor, the retail complex in Torrejón de Ardoz (Madrid) that it purchased at the beginning of the year.

The owner expects the work to completely renovate the asset, which spans a surface area of 123,000 m2, to begin in 2019. Moreover, the company has already signed the renewal of Primark’s rental contract in the centre and is closing agreements for the incorporation of new chains.

The project will focus initially on the fashion area, creating new façades and accesses. It will also modernise the parking lot, which contains 4,000 parking spaces, and will renovate the common areas and the lighting.

The new design has been created by the architecture studio Chapman Taylor. The execution of the project will be led by the architecture studio Arpv and coordinated by Gleeds. Cushman&Wakefield is managing and marketing the retail spaces.

Redevco Iberian Ventures acquired 70% of Parque Corredor in February for €140 million. Another 20% is controlled by Alcampo and the remaining 10% is in the hands of small owners. Over the last twelve months, the complex has received 11 million visitors, 4% more than during the same period in the previous year. Its offer includes several Inditex chains, H&M, Mango, Kiabi and C&A.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Investors Unleash a Buying Frenzy on Madrid & Barcelona’s High Streets

28 August 2018 – Cinco Días

E-commerce is having an unexpected effect in that it is boosting the main high streets of Madrid and Barcelona. A number of operators are opening flagship stores to compete with online sales, whilst at the same time, there is a great deal of interest from investors wanting to acquire these types of properties since they represent assets with high returns.

During the first six months of the year, the main high streets of Madrid and Barcelona sparked a buying frenzy amongst real estate investors. They spent €700 million on the purchase of stores during H1 – that figure was 44% higher than they spent during the whole of 2017, according to the High Street report published by the consultancy firm Savills Aguirre Newman.

In an environment of low returns on other investment alternatives, given the context of low interest rates and enormous liquidity in the market, significant capital flows are being channelled towards property. Within the sector, the high street segment (stores on the most commercial streets) of Madrid and Barcelona are attracting investors.

The yield or return in the best commercial neighbourhoods of Madrid and Barcelona amounts to 3.25%, and in secondary areas, that figure rises to between 4.5% and 4.75% (the better the area, the higher the cost of operations and so the lower the returns). In large towns, the yield on prime stores reaches 4%.

Institutional investors (large real estate and pension funds) have been the most active players, accounting for 76% of all operations, according to Savills Aguirre Newman, with the remaining 24% involving insurance companies, private firms, family offices and Socimis (…).

“Institutional investors continue to focus on the best commercial thoroughfares of the large cities, where the purchase tickets typically exceed €20 million”, says the study. Meanwhile, private investors are more active in opportunities in the cities in which they reside, where they are local experts.

Madrid has accounted for a large number of the operations seen in recent months, with the acquisition by the fund Hines of Preciados 13 (..) and Redevco’s purchase of the Mercado de San Miguel. Meanwhile, AEW bought the Mercado de Fuencarral; Generali acquired Preciados 9; Thor Equities snapped up Gran Vía 30, and M&G Real Estate purchased 68 on the same street. Nevertheless, a lot of the investment this year has been due to one transaction involving a portfolio of Inditex stores, which were acquired by the German fund Deka for €400 million.

For investors, another attractive feature of the Spanish market is the improvement in the rents that tenants are paying, which have clearly risen in recent years since the crisis. Prices on Calle Preciados, for example, have risen from €270/sqm/month two years ago to €277/sqm/month in 2018. Gran Vía has also seen a €10/sqm/month increase to €240/sqm/month, according to data from the consultancy firm.

In Barcelona, prices on the most expensive street in Spain, Portal de L’Angel, have grown by 5.5% during the same period to €285/sqm/month. Nevertheless, prices on Paseo de Gracia are rising the fastest, by 15%, to reach €260/sqm/month (…).

One of the major changes that is being seen is the concentration and opening of large flagship stores in the centre of the two cities through which the operators are seeking to counter the strength of online shopping, by offering what they call a shopping experience (…).

In this vein, as Cinco Días revealed last week, the Chinese technology firm Huawei is going to open a flagship store on Gran Vía 48 in Madrid, in the former C&A store. On the other hand, the Sfera brand, owned by El Corte Inglés, is leaving Gran Vía 30, given that it has recently reorganised its business in the centre of the city to focus on its larger and recently renovated megastore on Calle Preciados.

Original story: Cinco Días (by Alfonso Simón Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

CBRE: Investor Interest in High Street Stores Skyrockets

5 July 2018 – Cinco Días

Stores on the most commercial streets of Spain have become an object of desire for investors in the real estate market. Large funds and insurance companies alike are investing in these types of assets and experts predict that a new record is going to be set in the segment this year.

Investors are expected to spend around €1.1 billion on these types of commercial premises in 2018, according to forecasts from the consultancy CBRE. That figure would exceed the amount invested in high street stores in 2017 by €300 million, equivalent to a growth rate of 36.9%. Of interest are shops on commercial thoroughfares such as c/Preciados and c/Serrano in Madrid and Paseo de Gracia and Portal de l’Àngel in Barcelona. In fact, those two cities accounted for 79% of total investment last year. “Nevertheless, other cities in Spain are on the rise and there is growing demand for investment products in cities such as Bilbao, Valencia, Sevilla and Málaga”, according to the report “The Keys to Retail in Spain”, published by CBRE yesterday.

Investors regard these types of well-located assets as a good option for placing their money, a solid alternative in the context of low-interest rates and because these high street stores perform better (than other commercial assets) in the face of competition from online retailers. Currently, according to CBRE; the returns on these properties amount to 3.5% in Barcelona and to 3.25% in Madrid; in other cities (with more risk), the returns are greater.

The stars of these acquisitions are mainly the large funds. Hines, M&G, AEW, Thor, Union Investment, CBRE GI and Deka. “In 2017, in addition, an insurance company entered the high street sector for the first time: Generali acquired the Pull & Bear store on Calle Preciados in Madrid”, according to the report. Other active players include the Socimis, such as Tander, Ores, and Silicius, which have started to express interest.

In terms of large operations so far this year, in January, the German fund Deka acquired 16 Inditex stores for €400 million. Another significant operation was the acquisition of Mercado de San Miguel by the Dutch fund Redevco, for €70 million.

Original story: Cinco Días (by Alfonso Simón Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Renta & Arcano Bid for Bankia’s Former Branch on c/Alcalá (Madrid)

5 April 2018 – Eje Prime

The number of parties interested in one of Bankia’s star commercial assets in Madrid is being whittled down little by little. As Eje Prime revealed, last month, the entity opened an auction for its branch located at number 1 Calle Alcalá. After a period receiving offers, Arcano and Renta have been chosen to participate in the final round. Within the coming days, a decision will be taken as to who will end up acquiring the asset, according to sources close to the auction, who indicate that Arcano is currently best positioned in the race.

According to the same sources, a third group reached the final round but then withdrew due to the value that the asset may reach in the last round of offers. Arcano is one of the best-positioned players given the type of property up for sale; in recent months, it has acquired a handful of other assets with similar characteristics, such as the store at number 202 Calle Bravo Murillo that it purchased from Redevco for €12 million.

The highest offers submitted to Bankia for this latest asset amount to around €18 million, with those presented by Arcano and Renta Corporación proving most attractive to the banking institution (amounting to €18.3 million and €18.2 million, respectively, according to sources close to the operation). The asset, which is likely to interest restaurant operators rather than fashion firms given its (limited window) façade, comprises two floors: the first spans 458 m2, whilst the basement measures 405 m2.

In the event that Renta Corporación’s bid proves successful, something that is unlikely according to market sources, it could be the first move in a larger deal to acquire the whole building. Renta Corporación does not specialise in commercial assets but is an expert in the acquisition of entire buildings for their subsequent renovation. Moreover, the building did go up for sale in 2014.

Indeed, following the success of the sale of several assets, such as those located at numbers 18 and 3 Gran Vía for more than €26 million, and at number 8 Plaza Chamberí for more than €40 million, the Community of Madrid decided to try its luck with this property, located on Calle Alcalá, for which it was asking €10.7 million at the time.

The asset, constructed in 1880, has a total surface area of 3,209 m2 and used to house the offices of the Community of Madrid’s Ministry of Economics and Finance. Although nowadays it is used as offices, and its compatible uses include hotel, commercial, administrative, healthcare, education and even residential. Nevertheless, the Community of Madrid pulled out in the end and did not end up selling the building.

Bankia’s other prime assets

In addition to the premises on Calle Alcalá, Bankia’s portfolio of assets contains a second branch located in a prime enclave in the Catalan capital. It is the former headquarters of Bankia in Barcelona, located at number 9 Plaza Cataluña. That property has a surface area of 1,000 m2 and has received attention from a large number of operators.

Sources are Bankia have explained to Eje Prime that whilst the aim with the branch in Madrid was to sell it, the plans for the property in the Catalan capital are not as clear. According to the entity, it is considering several options, including a sale, but it may also lease the property to an operator and even invest in generating value from the asset by undertaking a renovation (…).

Original story: Eje Prime (by C. Pareja)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Savills Aguirre Newman: Tertiary RE Transactions Soar in January to Reach €910M

6 February 2018 – Eje Prime

The sales of the Parque Corredor shopping centre in Madrid and the 16 Inditex stores in Spain and Portugal have boosted the sector, which has already registered 40% of the total amount invested during the first quarter of 2017.

Operations in the retail segment have stepped up a gear. The Parque Corredor shopping centre in Madrid, and the portfolio of stores that Inditex put up for sale in Spain, represented a boost for the investor boom in the sector during the first month of the year. In total, those two operations accounted for €660 million of the €910 million that was spent on the sale and purchase of non-residential real estate assets in Spain during the month of January.

For the Inditex portfolio, which contained 16 stores located across Spain (14) and Portugal, the German fund Deka paid more than €500 million. That transaction was followed by another major retail deal, specifically, the purchase by the joint venture between Ares and Redevco of 70% of Parque Corredor, whereby absorbing the 40% stake in the centre that Sareb held, for €140 million.

Thanks to those two sales and others that were closed during the first month of 2018, the investment quota for the year has already reached 40% of the total figure spent during the whole of the first quarter last year, according to data from Savills Aguirre Newman.

Following a month of considerable activity, the forecast for the rest of 2018 is optimistic. Sources at the consultancy firm predict a year of “significant investment”. In this way, the volume of operations forecast for the office sector could exceed €2.0 billion, after investment in that segment amounted to €210 million in January.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake