Tag: residential land

A 17,000 m2 Residential Plot Goes Up For Sale in Central Santander

12 February 2019 – Eje Prime

An operation is on the horizon in the heart of Santander. A plot of land spanning 17,000 m2, with planning permission to build homes up to three storeys high, has gone up for auction with a starting price of €1.3 million. The land is owned by a local family, which inherited several plots.

The objective of the sale is to divide the “proindiviso”, given that the land is currently owned by six members of the family and a third party. Nevertheless, an agreement between the owners allows the abbreviated procedure to apply to the auction, in other words, there is no need to set up a compensation board.

The plot, spanning 16,921 m2 and with a buildable surface area of 4,700 m2, is located in the urban centre of Santander, in a growth area next to the El Alisal shopping centre. The urbanisation has almost been finished and there are facilities and transport connections in the vicinity.

Following its publication on the auction website of the Official Gazette of the Mercantile Registry (BOE), interested parties have a period of twenty days to submit offers, after which a period will open for the owners to present the option to improve the bid to third parties.

The land has planning permission to build three-storey blocks with garages and storerooms, as well as a communal area with a garden and swimming pool. The land is valued at €2.15 million, according to an independent expert. That is the de facto starting price, although a discount of 60% has been established thereon. Hence, the minimum price of €1.29 million.

The same family owns another plot very nearby, spanning 9,157 m2, with a buildable surface area of 3,394 m2, which is not adjacent but which is located in the same urbanisation, according to explanations provided by sources speaking to Eje Prime.

Original story: Eje Prime (by I.P.G.)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Sabadell Puts its Property Developer Subsidiary Up For Sale with Assets worth €1.2bn

5 February 2019 – La Vanguardia

Banco Sabadell announced on Tuesday that it is putting its subsidiary Solvia Desarollos Inmobiliarios up for sale. The property developer owns assets worth around €1.2 billion. The assets are mostly plots of residential land, located in prime areas of Madrid, Barcelona and other major cities, as well as 130 work-in-progress real estate developments.

Less than a week ago, the President of Banco Sabadell, Josep Oliu, announced at the presentation of last year’s results that “we are going to continue with our asset divestment policy”. On this occasion, Sabadell has chosen the investment bank Rothschild, according to the relevant fact sent to the CNMV, to circulate the sales prospectus amongst possible buyers. According to market sources, large funds such as Blackstone, Cerberus, Värde and Oaktree, amongst others, may be interested in buying the company.

The entity, led by Francisco Pérez, has around 40 employees, who will also exit Sabadell’s orbit. The sales process may last six months. Firstly, the candidates will have to submit offers and then a competitive process will be carried out.

This sale is running in parallel to the sale of 80% of the real estate manager Solvia. In theory, an agreement has been reached to sell that firm to Lindorff Holding Spain, which belongs to the Swedish fund Intrum, for €300 million. That price may increase by an additional €40 million if certain conditions established in the sales agreement are fulfilled.

Original story: La Vanguardia (by Conchi Lafraya)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Atlético de Madrid Expects to Close the Sale of the Calderón Plots in Early 2019

20 November 2018 – Eje Prime

Atlético de Madrid is proof of the importance that property can have when it comes to financing activity. The football club has decided to take out a mortgage backed by the Wanda Metropolitano stadium to secure its €200 million refinancing with Inbursa, the financial entity controlled by Carlos Slim, according to reports from Palco 23. The intention of the Board of Directors is to convert that debt into a long-term liability and obtain better conditions than those signed when the financing plan for the new stadium was modified. In parallel, the club is preparing the sale of the plots of land on the site of the Vicente Calderón, scheduled for the beginning of 2019.

The €200 million refinancing plan and the sale of the plots alongside the Manzanares River are closely linked. Two years ago, the Mexican bank offered the financing necessary to finish the building work at the Wanda Metropolitano, after FCC, the construction group that it also controls, refused to charge for its service through the delivery of units for urban development at the Vicente Calderón.

The contract allowed the parties to cancel the loan with the sale of the plot or with the payment of annual instalments for four seasons, which made the repayment of the loan very short term, in the middle of the expansion of the sports area. In the end, the club has committed to extend the term and so the liquidity injection that will result from the sale of the Calderón will not be used to repay the debt, but rather to make more resources available for the club’s daily operations, as well as for new projects and to access to the transfer market,  if necessary.

Sources at the club indicate that the second real estate operation will probably not be signed until next year, after the municipal government of Madrid failed to provide its definitive approval of the urban planning project until last week. “We think that the uses will be converted into plots and registered in the name of the club at the beginning of 2019, which is when we will proceed with the sale”, they said.

Obtaining all of the permits is the guarantee that the property developers will be able to undertake their projects without any problems. The definitive plan establishes 33,339 m2 for residential use, with a buildability of 132,344 m2; of that capacity, 13,234 m2 in total will be reserved for social housing properties. Tertiary use land will span 14,705 m2, with 13,893 m2 for public amenities and just over 73,000 m2 for green space and others.

The new owners will have to assume the urbanisation costs of €42.22 million, including the €22 million required for the demolition of the former Atléti stadium, without affecting the M-30 road, which passes under one of the stands. It is unknown whether the football club and the Mahou brewery or the future owners will assume that price, and what impact that will have on the final sales price (…).

Original story: Eje Prime (by M. Menchen)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Quabit Buys Land in Madrid for €3.8M to Build 85 Homes

29 October 2018 – Eje Prime

Quabit is expanding its land portfolio to fulfil its growth plan. The listed real estate company has purchased a plot of buildable land measuring 8,500 m2 in Valdemoro (Madrid) for €3.8 million, according to a statement issued by the company.

The property developer is going to build 85 homes on that site, through which it expects to generate revenues of €17 million. With this new investment, over the last year and a half, Quabit has incorporated residential land on which to build 4,925 homes all over Spain into its portfolio.

Moreover, the real estate firm now owns a portfolio of buildable land to fulfil 75% of the objectives established in its Business Plan for 2017-2022. So far this year, the property developer has invested €35.7 million in the purchase of land in areas such as Madrid, the Costa del Sol and the Corredor de Henares, as well as in the Balearic Islands. In total, Quabit has added 116,700 m2 of land to its portfolio on which to build 980 homes and through which it expects to invoice €179 million.

Since it launched its new business plan in 2017, the property developer controlled by Félix Abánades has invested almost €200 million in residential land. Currently, Quabit is marketing fifty developments comprising 3,724 homes. The property developer’s land bank spans 1.1 million m2 for the construction of 8,800 homes.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Blackstone Puts 2 million m2 of Popular’s Residential Land up for Sale

1 October 2018 – Cinco Días

Now that the banks have offloaded their real estate portfolios onto the opportunistic funds that acquired them, it is time for the next move. Those buyers are going to see at first hand whether property developers are interested in buying plots on which to homes can be built all over Spain. The first player to test the market is Blackstone, which has placed a macro-portfolio of land spanning 2 million m2 from Popular on the market; according to market sources, it has the capacity for the construction of more than 18,000 homes.

The operation is being carried out through Aliseda, a company controlled by Blackstone (51%) and Santander (49%). The value of the plots is almost €500 million, according to sources at Aliseda. That real estate firm already revealed, at the start of September, that a sales process was in the pipeline relating to so-called Project Origin (…).

This land proceeds from the toxic assets of Popular, after Santander sold 51% of the property-linked portfolio to Blackstone last year for €5.1 billion. In that portfolio, there were doubtful loans and foreclosed assets, including both homes and land linked to property developers. Of those assets, 42% corresponded to land and work in progress projects. In that operation, the servicer Aliseda was also transferred. That entity is now responsible for managing those assets, recovering doubtful loans and, when recovery is not possible, foreclosing the properties and putting them on the market, like in  the case of this macro-operation.

The details of the operation

The details of the operation reveal a gigantic portfolio. The land portfolio spans 2.05 million m2 for residential use, specifically for the construction of 18,299 homes, on plots located in 43 provinces, but excluding Madrid and Barcelona. In total, 270 assets have been put up for sale.

Blackstone and Santander, through their servicer Aliseda, are giving companies the option of bidding only for the plots that are of interest to them. The real estate firm has opened an online store in which it says around 1,000 interested investors are participating.

Local property developers are expected to be the players most interested in these plots. In fact, Blackstone has decided to put plots on the market in locations where demand has reactivated a bit later, whereby backing the recovery of the property sector across Spain. The fund has entrusted this transaction to the real estate consultancy CBRE.

The portfolio is divided into four categories, based on the type of land. Specifically, 158 assets (58% of the total) corresponding to 888,364 m2 of land, are finalist plots (which can be built on right away) with capacity for 8,691 homes. It has also put some work in progress projects up for sale, in other words, developments that were left unfinished. In that case, there are 39 assets, spanning 174,034 m2 and corresponding to 1,549 homes.

Aliseda is also marketing 33 assets for which the urbanisation process has been started, with capacity for 4,603 homes and another 42 assets without any licences for 4,772 homes.

In terms of the locations, Andalucía, Levante and Galicia account for the majority of the assets. The 10 provinces with the most homes in the portfolio are Murcia (14%), Málaga (12%), Castellón (7%), Valencia (5%), La Coruña (5%), Alicante (4%), Asturias (4%), Navarra (4%) and Zaragoza (3%).

Property developers interested in bidding for one or more of the plots will have until the end of October to do so and Aliseda expects to close the operations during December.

To put the gigantic size of the portfolio being marketed by Aliseda into context, it is worth comparing it with the land banks owned by some of the large listed property developers. Only Metrovacesa (in which Santander and BBVA hold stakes) owns more land. It currently owns plots for 38,000 homes, with a gross value of €2.686 billion, according to its most recent accounts. In the case of Aedas, it has a landbank for 14,521 homes and Neinor has land for another 13,500 units (…).

It remains to be seen whether the appetite of property developers for these locations outside of Madrid and Barcelona, the most active markets, is sufficient and whether they will be capable of swallowing up this supply. It is the first time that interest in the market for land proceeding from bank assets has been tested on such a large scale (…).

Original story: Cinco Días (by Alfonso Simón Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Blackstone Launches Large Sale of Buildable Land After Acquiring Aliseda

6 September 2018 – El Confidencial

It was just a matter of time. Aliseda, the servicer of Banco Popular, now controlled by Blackstone (51%) and Santander (49%), is starting the school year by looking for buyers for 270 residential plots and work in progress developments, with a total buildability of more than 2 million m2, distributed throughout Spain.

It is the most important land sale currently underway in Spain and, unlike what is happening in other areas of the market, it will not involve a block sale of assets, but rather possible interested parties may acquire each plot individually, which will allow for the entry of local property developers into a market that has been dominated until now by large property developers and investment funds.

The assets are located in 43 Spanish provinces. They consist of 231 plots in total, mainly buildable plots or plots under development, and 39 projects in progress. Many of the sites are located in Galicia, Levante, Costa del Sol and the Canary Islands; the latter market has been especially active in recent months.

“Unlike other sales processes, the operation that Aliseda is now putting on the market allows investors the possibility of submitting an offer for any of the plots independently, which means that they can structure the perimeter that best suits their needs and investment criteria. In this way, both local property developers, as well as institutional investors will have the opportunity to participate under equal conditions”, says Adolfo Blázquez, Director of Land at Aliseda.

Local developers and national developers looking to grow in volume and build large developments may bid for the plots, as may institutional investors looking to buy large blocks of buildable land – a scarce and very sought-after asset, especially in the hottest markets of Madrid, Barcelona and the islands.

Meanwhile, Samuel Población, National Director of residential and land at CBRE, the exclusive consultancy firm selected to launch the sales process, says that “the shortage of buildable land in the Spanish market has become one of the great barriers for property developers. Thus, the activation of residential land sale processes, such as this operation by Aliseda, places prime raw material on the market, which will gradually start to satisfy the high demand that currently exists”.

The process began on 7 September, with access being granted to information about the assets, and will go on until December with the closure of selected bids.

In March, the US fund and Banco Santander created Proyecto Quasar Investments, the holding company that groups together the real estate portfolio of Banco Popular and the marketing platform Aliseda. Blackstone controls the majority of the capital in the new company and also takes care of its management, led by Eduard Mendiluce, the CEO of the company. Mendiluce is also the most senior executive of Anticipa, the other large real estate firm that the fund owns in Spain and the former head of Catalunya Caixa Inmobiliaria.

Original story: El Confidencial

Translation: Carmel Drake

Urbania Developer: Panamanian Capital Promotes 20 Developments in Valencia

31 July 2018 – Eje Prime

Numerous Spanish real estate entrepreneurs crossed the pond when the Spanish property sector crashed at the end of the 2000s. One of the property developers who got on a plane when the walls of the real estate sector were starting to crack in Spain was Juan Antonio Claveria. That Valencian businessman is now back on his home turf with Urbania Developer, a Panamanian real estate company that is planning to “have up to twenty projects under development over the next three years in the Community of Valencia”, explained Claveria to Eje Prime.

The Spanish businessman is the CEO of Urbania Developer, a company listed on the Panamanian stock market, which he created last year together with his partners, the local investors Yasser Williams and Omar Fricentese. “The company’s share capital is 100% private”, highlighted Claveria.

The three have recently teamed up with the Valencian builder José Vicente Roig, who has included the assets of the former property developer Patrimonios del Levante in the group. With those, the real estate company has launched its growth plan in the Community of Valencia, where the firm already has eight projects underway or on the verge of being executed.

“We are interested in towns with between 200,000 and 300,000 inhabitants”, explains Claveria, who is also attracted to “those suburbs that have between 40,000 and 80,000 inhabitants, which are well connected by metro”. Public transport links and the proximity to the capital of Valencia are the key aspects of the investment policy that Urbania Developer is going to carry out. It is turning its back on the overheating of prices that is being recorded in the centre of the city.

Torrent, Paterna, Mislata, Benimamet and Paiporta are the towns on the outskirts of Valencia where Urbania Developer has residential projects underway at the moment. Nevertheless, “we are now finalising the purchase of new plots of land”, said Claveria, who indicated that his company could close around half a dozen operations soon.

Moreover, the property developer has already expanded its business to the south of Valencia with the purchase of a “small plot” in Alicante. Size is important for the company, which projects developments comprising “between eight and thirty homes”. “In Castellón, we are also looking at plots”, said the businessman, who wants to focus solely on the Community of Valencia in this first phase of his arrival in Spain (…).

Currently, the property developer has more than 5,000 homes built or under construction in Panama, the epicentre of the company’s business,  as well as in Paraguay and Nicaragua. In the Panamanian market alone (“the Switzerland of Latin America”, according to Claveria), the property developer manages 2.2 million m2 of residential land spread over 18 projects.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Aedas Homes Exceeds its Annual Land Purchase Target by 182% in First 6 Months of 2018

8 July 2018 – Expansión

The property developer Aedas Homes has acquired land for the development of more than 1,900 homes during the first six months of 2018, which means that it has exceeded by 182% the target that the company set itself for the whole of the year, which forecast the purchase of raw materials for 1,042 units.

In a statement to Spain’s National Securities and Markets Commission (CNMV), Aedas Homes describes that it closed a total of 16 investments amounting to €96.6 million between January and June, buying up land located in the three provinces in which it already operates (Madrid, Sevilla and Valencia) and in two new provinces (Granada and Valladolid), whose management will depend on the Regional Teams in Andalucía and the Centre, respectively.

The purchases undertaken by Aedas Homes have involved an investment of around €51,000 per home in land, an amount that includes the costs of converting all of the portfolio into ‘ready to build’. By area, the unit costs have amounted to €69,100 in Madrid, €55,900 in Valencia, €55,500 in Valladolid, €50,700 in Granada and €36,800 in Sevilla.

“These operations are undoubtedly the best example of the investment discipline of Aedas Homes, based on the search for and acquisition of opportunities that offer high returns”, said the Director of Strategy and Investment at the property developer, Sergio Gálvez, who described the current climate tor the acquisition of land as “magnificent”.

In this sense, he highlighted that the company has closed one operation every ten days and has almost doubled the target forecast for the whole year. “Our vision of the market reinforces the plan to continue with new investments as we identify new business opportunities that meet our strict investment criteria”, he added.

In terms of the new enclaves in which Aedas has acquired its first plots, Gálvez highlighted that they are markets “in clear recovery and real estate expansion”, and he added that in each city, the firm has focused on areas “with the greatest demand and with a shortage of supply in terms of new build properties and land”, thanks to the local knowledge of its Regional Teams and the advantage of having been monitoring these markets for many years.

Original story: Expansión

Translation: Carmel Drake

Property Developer Impulsa Buys Land in Madrid for €130M

18 May 2018 – Expansión

The property developer group Impulsa Proyectos Inmobiliarios has purchased the last portfolio of buildable land available in Las Colinas de Rivas Vaciamadrid for €130 million. Specifically, the group has completed the purchase of four residential use plots with a buildable surface area of 55,000 m2 where it plans to build 375 detached family homes distributed over four developments.

The first development, which will contain 137 three- and four-bedroom units, is already on the market. Construction on the project, which is being financed by Banco Santander, is expected to begin imminently. The sales process has been managed by Colliers International, as the financial advisor, and Ashurst, as the legal advisor.

“Whilst Madrid is experiencing a period of paralysis due to the scarcity of residential land, the south-east of the capital is establishing itself”, he explained.

Original story: Expansión (by R. Arroyo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Socimi AP67 Debuts on the MAB with Aim of Doubling its Portfolio

8 May 2018 – Eje Prime

AP67 rang the bell on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB) for the first time this morning. The Socimi debuted on the stock market with a preliminary share price of €6.65, which corresponds to an overall company valuation of €34 million. The aim of the company is to double its portfolio over the next few years through the purchase of new assets.

The real estate investment company is the sixth Socimi to make its debut on the MAB so far this year, which further strengthens the presence of this type of player in the Spanish real estate sector. In the case of AP67, the company has debuted with a portfolio worth €46.5 million comprising assets of all kinds located in Leganés (Madrid).

Gesvalt has acted as the external advisor to the operation, whilst Armabex has worked as the registered advisor for the stock market debut of the company, which is owned by Álvaro Rubio Garzón and Francisco Escudero López.

The Socimi owns small- and medium-sized plots of urban land for residential use, as well as commercial premises, parking lots and industrial land. In addition to the new purchases that it plans to make, the company aspires to “continue to generate returns of more than 8%”, according to its president, Álvaro Rubio.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake