The Luksic Family will Reopen Hotel Adler in Madrid at the End of 2019

18 March 2019 – Preferente

The Luksic family is going to reopen the Hotel Adler in Madrid with BBVA as its main tenant, after the bank closed a rental agreement to occupy three floors of the property, spanning almost 1,600 m2.

The wealthy Chilean family purchased the iconic property, which is located on the corner of Calles Velázquez and Goya, in the heart of the Salamanca neighbourhood, from the Vázquez family for €27 million.

The new tenant is expected to move in during Q4 2019 since the building work is still in a very initial phase. BBVA is going to open a new multi-functional office/branch in the property.

Original story: Preferente (by R.P.)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

CaixaBank Finalises the Rental of The Ó Building in Can Batlló

4 March 2019 – Eje Prime

CaixaBank is finalising the rental of the 12-storey ‘Ó Building’ in Barcelona, located at number 159 Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, in an operation brokered by CBRE. The property has a surface area of 18,000 m2 and is owned by the property developer Clover Capital.

The Catalan entity is considering moving its digital services team into the property or its subsidiary GDS Cusa, which specialises in debt recovery. Both divisions have been looking for new office space in Barcelona for several months.

CaixaBank currently operates the bulk of its activity from its headquarters in the Torres La Caixa, located at numbers 621-629 Avenida Diagonal in Barcelona, although the entity moved its corporate headquarters to Valencia in 2017.

Original story: Eje Prime (by Roger Arnau)

Summary/Translation: Carmel Drake

Liberbank Sells its HQ on the Outskirts of Madrid for €45.3M

1 March 2019 – El Confidencial

Last year, Liberbank sold its headquarters in Madrid for €45.3 million under a sale and leaseback arrangement, generating gains of €23.4 million. The bank will continue to occupy the property, located in the Fuente de la Mora area of the Spanish capital, on a rental basis.

Liberbank acquired the building from Sareb in 2015. The identity of the purchaser has not been revealed.

Original story: El Confidencial

Summary translation by: Carmel Drake

B&B Adds 7 Hotels to its Portfolio in Spain

5 February 2018 – Expansión

Growth / The French group has added seven establishments from the H2 Hoteles chain, two under ownership. Its domestic portfolio now comprises 29 hotels and more than 2,700 rooms. 

B&B Hotels –owned by the private equity fund PAI Partners – is strengthening its commitment to Spain. The French group, which arrived in the country in 2015 with the purchase of four hotels and, one year later, purchased the low-cost chain Sidorme, has incorporated seven new establishments from the Catalan H2 Hoteles chain into its portfolio. Two of the properties have been included as owned assets and the other five are rental arrangements; these hotels contain 600 rooms in total.

With this operation, the company specialising in low-cost hotels now operates 29 establishments in the domestic market, comprising more than 2,700 rooms.

Specifically, B&B Hotels has completed the purchase of the management company and the rental contracts – which have a duration of almost 20 years – and has incorporated the H2 Hoteles establishments’ teams in Castellón, Elche, Getafe, Granada and Jerez de la Frontera, owned by AC Hoteles. Moreover, the French group has taken ownership of another two hotels in Oviedo and Rubí (Barcelona).

Following the purchase, H2 Hoteles will have three hotels left in its portfolio –H2 Sant Cugat (Barcelona), H2 Fuenlabrada (Madrid) and H2 Ávila–, as well as apartments in Cáceres.

The Director General of B&B Hotels Spain and Portugal, Jairo González, explained to Expansión that the company plans to sell the ownership assets in the short term. “We will likely incorporate other hotels to be able to have a portfolio of assets that we can sell all together, continuing with their management and following the company’s asset-light model”, he said.

In the framework of this strategy, in May, B&B Hotels reached an agreement with the investment fund Corum to sell eight hotels that it owned in Spain for €30 million. By virtue of that agreement, B&B will continue to operate those establishments under rental agreements for at least 15 years.

The director said that the H2 Hoteles establishments are “in perfect operating condition”, and will be adapted over the next few months to fit with the company’s corporate image.

“The forecast investment for the seven hotels amounts to almost €1.5 million and will be limited to adapting the establishments to our identity”, he added.

Plans

In terms of growth plans, the executive expressed his intention to continue to increase his firm’s presence in Spain. “We have more than 20 projects under development in different degrees of maturity in the Iberian Peninsula. In Portugal, for example, we expect to announce more news soon. We forecast that we will have more than 50 establishments by the end of 2019”, said González.

B&B’s roadmap in Spain allowed the firm to triple its revenues last year to reach €30 million. Besides Spain, B&B Hotels Group has a presence in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Morocco, the Czech Republic and Brazil. The company’s plans involve strengthening its world network to reach 600 hotels by 2020, with around 50,000 rooms.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Lladó Family Buys Office Building in Madrid from Axiare for €30M

22 December 2017 – Eje Prime

Axiare is ending the year by starting a new divestment phase and the Lladó family is growing its portfolio of assets. José Lladó, President and majority shareholder of Técnicas Reunidas, is exercising his real estate leg with the purchase of a building on Calle Fernando el Santo, owned by the Socimi Axiare, for €30 million. The asset will become the new headquarters of the European investment fund Eurofund Capital Partners.

The Socimi has begun its divestment phase and has decided to get rid of its Fernando el Santo property, a prime building located in the centre of Madrid, for which it will receive proceeds of €30 million.

The property, measuring 3,254 m2 spread over six floors, is located at number 15 Calle Fernando el Santo.  It has 42 underground parking spaces and currently houses the headquarters of the Argentinian embassy and consulate in Spain. It is adjacent to the current residence of the Argentinian ambassador.

The Socimi has obtained a return of 82% from this asset in just three years, after having purchased the property in 2014 for €16.5 million. Moreover, the building’s rent has risen by 43% during the three years that the company has managed it.

The new owner of the building is the Lladó family, which in recent months has opted to acquired assets located in prime areas where the value of those assets may exceed their prices over the coming years. Before acquiring this property from Axiare, the company purchased another building from the Socimi Hispania, which will house the future headquarters of the law firm Uría y Menéndez for €29 million.

In recent years, the owner of Técnicas Reunidas has also purchased a building at number 2 Marqués de la Ensenada, located just a stone’s throw from Plaza Colón in Madrid, for €6 million. In July 2014, the family office also purchased a building from Vía Célere at number 15 Paseo de Recoletos, for almost €20 million. The Lladó family also owns the property at number 33 on the same street.

Axiare starts divesting at the height of its takeover bid

The Socimi Axiare, which on the offensive, after Colonial launched a takeover bid to take control of the Socimi, is beginning a new divestment phase with the sale of this asset.

Axiare’s portfolio appeals to Colonial because it mainly comprises offices (74%), but also contains other types of assets, such as commercial premises, which account for 9% of the total, and logistics assets, which represent 18% of the total. The Socimi is led by Luis Alfonso López de Herrera-Oria.

The main assets of Axiare, whose tenants include companies such as eBay, Cuatrecasas, Konecta, McKinsey&Company and Alantra amongst its clients, are its office buildings on Calle Sagasta in Madrid, measuring 7,054 m2; on Calle Velázquez, measuring 16,816 m2; and on Calle Manuel de Falla, measuring 6,252 m2.

Original story: Eje Prime (by Custodio Pareja)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Inditex Puts 16 Stores in Spain & Portugal up for Sale for €400M

12 December 2017 – Eje Prime

Inditex is getting rid of some of its property portfolio. The Galician giant has put 16 retail premises up for sale, of which fourteen are located in Spain and the other two in Portugal. The buyer will have to commit to leasing the stores to the retail group for twenty years.

The retail group is looking to raise USD 472 million (€400.5 million) from this operation, through which it is seeking to harmonise its leasing strategy, according to Bloomberg. Inditex has only confirmed the sale of the premises.

The Spanish company ended the first half of this year with an 11.5% increase in sales and a 9% rise in its net result, percentages that were similar to those recorded during the first six months of 2016. The company chaired by Pablo Isla recorded turnover of €11.671 billion, whereby exceeding the €11 billion threshold for the first time during the first six months of the year.

The net result of the company that owns Zara amounted to €1.366 billion during H1 2017, compared to €1.256 billion during the first half of last year. Its EBITDA also grew at a rate of 9%, from €2.112 billion to €2.292 billion.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Santander’s Landlord Finalises The Sale Of 400 Branches

5 March 2015 – El Confidencial

Uro Property, the name given to the company formerly known as Samos, will begin trading on the MAB (‘Mercado Alternativo Bursátil’ or Alternative Investment Market) with the minimum legal amount, given that its ultimate aim is to move onto the main stock market.

Another one of the Socimi giants is counting down the hours until its goes public. Uro Property, the name give to the company formerly known as Samos, and the company through which several investment funds advised by Oleguer Pujol purchased a one third stake in Santander’s branches, will list on the MAB within the next few days and will continue to put the pieces in place to fulfil its aim of listing on the main stock market, with a healthier financial structure.

With this challenge in mind, the company chaired by Carlos Martínez Campos and led by Simon Blaxland is finalising the sale of 400 of the 1,316 branches that it owns, a transaction that it is already negotiating with an institutional investor and that will allow it to repay some of its €1,424 million loans ahead of time. This debt was already financed last year, when Samos’s creditor entities, led by Santander and CaixaBank, took control of the company, by capitalising €424 million of mezzanine debt and creating Uro.

This transaction turned Santander into the main shareholder of the Socimi, with a 24% stake, whilst CaixaBank took ownership of 14.89%; BNP Paribas holds a 8.81% stake and Société Générale holds 3.14%. In addition, several hedge funds and other entities, including Barclays and Bayerische Landesbank were left with stakes of less than 1%; whilst the former shareholders, Sun Capital, now known as Atisha Holding and the Pearl Group, now Phoenix Life, hold 21.7% and 14.38%, respectively.

All of the shareholders have committed to retaining their stakes for a minimum period of 12 months, during which time Uro Property is confident that it will close a new financing deal that will allow it to reduce its spread from its current level of 300 basis points to closer to 200 basis points.

In fact, the listing on MAB is seen as another step in this process, given that by law, all of the Socimis are obliged to go public within a period of two years. Although Uro Property’s deadline in this sense does not expire until after 2015, it has chosen to go public as soon as possible precisely because it believes that its status as a listed company will facilitate its refinancing.

This explains why Santander’s landlord is going to limit its initial placement to the minimum established by law: two million euros, a paltry figure, considering that its assets have been valued by CB Richard Ellis to amount to €2,000 million and given that forecasts suggest its market value amounts to around €500 million.

An independent audit to separate the company from Pujol

Renta 4 has been hired as the liquidity provider, whilst EY has performed the valuation of the company ahead of the placement. Aware that all eyes are focused on it, given its historical ties with Oleguer Pujol, the company commissioned Deloitte to conduct an independent audit (the auditor of the Socimi’s accounts is PwC), which certified that the maximum investment made in the Socimi by the son of the former President of Cataluña amounted to €67,000.

The Socimi has signed a new lease agreement with Santander, which has committed to occupy the properties for a minimum period of 25 years, and it may extend that period by 14 more years for a third of the assets, which the bank, chaired by Ana Botín, has identified as more strategic for its business. In return, the company has been granted the right to review the portfolio each year, as well as the ability to exchange some branches for others, provided these exchanges do not represent more than 1% per year, under any circumstances.

Santander will pay Uro rent amounting to €125 million net, since the bank itself will bear all of the costs relating to the properties. This guaranteed income, together with the refinancing deal signed last year, allowed the Socimi to generate profits in 2014. Moreover, with the new financial structure that it is negotiating, which it is hoped will extend the current six year maturity period, the Socimi is confident that it will significantly improve its results; this is key for a vehicle such as this, whose main attraction is the fact that it is obliged to distribute the majority of its profits in the form of dividends.

Uro will be able to begin working on its plans to list on the main stock market and expand its portfolio of assets from 2016, in line with the steps being taken by its competitors, such as Merlin, which acquired BBVA’s offices.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Ruth Ugalde)

Translation: Carmel Drake