Tag: residential properties

Almagro Capital Buys Four Residential Properties in Madrid

The residential Socimi has acquired four new assets in Madrid, where it already owns 60 properties, through the ‘reverse housing’ formula.

The Socimi Almagro Capital, which specialises in residential buildings for the elderly, has acquired four new properties in the city of Madrid, taking its portfolio of assets to more than 60.

The assets acquired are located in the neighbourhoods of Goya, Marroquina, Pinar del Rey and Aluche, as reported by the company this morning. In total, the new properties add more than 345 square metres of surface area to the Socimi’s portfolio. Almagro paid 810,000 euros in total for the assets, which it financed using its own resources.

Renta’s Revenues Soared by 102% to €92.4M in 2018

1 March 2019 – Expansión

Renta Corporación closed 2018 with revenues of €92.4 million, up by 102% compared to a year earlier and a net profit of €16.6 million, up by 33% (…).

The real estate company’s business portfolio amounted to €133.9 million at the end of 2018, plus the assets managed for sale in conjunction with real estate funds for an estimated investment of €35 million.

Dividends

Last October, the Board of Directors agreed the distribution of a dividend amounting to €1.1 million to be charged against the income statement for 2018. At the next General Shareholders’ Meeting, which is going to be held on 11 April, the company is expected to approve the distribution of €1.9 million as a complementary dividend.

In terms of Vivenio, the Socimi that Renta Corporación launched in the middle of 2017 together with the Dutch pension fund APG, it closed 2018 with 18 residential properties in its portfolio containing 2,000 homes under management, which have a gross value of €524 million (…).

Original story: Expansión (by M. Anglés)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Vbare Has Accumulated Investments of €34.2M Since its Stock Market Debut

5 February 2019 – Eje Prime

Vbare is continuing its commitment to Spain. In 2018, the company invested €15 million in the purchase of residential properties. In January 2019 alone, the Socimi spent another €5.5 million on the purchase of number 94 Calle Vallehermoso, taking the firm’s total investment since 2016, the year it made its stock market debut, to €34.2 million.

The company’s most talked about acquisitions include the purchase of a building comprising 27 homes and 2 commercial premises in Madrid for €5.2 million. That was its second largest investment to date, after its purchase in October of another property on Calle Luchana for €10.5 million.

The trend demonstrates Vbare’s commitment to prime assets. The Socimi has purchased 29 properties in 2019 compared with the 52 that it bought in 2015. Nevertheless, the price of those investments is 41.03% higher. In other words, the cost per property has risen from €75,000 per unit to almost €190,000.

Nevertheless, and despite the investments undertaken in 2018, the group reduced its net result during the first nine months of last year. Its profit amounted to €1.84 million, down by 15.6% compared with the same period in 2017, according to a statement issued by the company to the Alternative Investment Market (MAB).

For this reason, the company now intends to increase its influence in Madrid, in terms of both square metres, as well as the number of units that it owns. In general terms, the group also plans to increase the occupancy rate of its buildings from 83% to 90%.

Original story: Eje Prime (by Marta Casado Pla)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Renta Corporación’s Profits Rose by 14% to €11.7M in September

24 October 2018 – Eje Prime

Renta Corporación closed September with good results. The Spanish real estate group recorded a profit of €11.7 million to September, up by 13.6% compared to the same period in 2017, according to a statement filed by the company with Spain’s National Securities and Exchange Commission (CNMV).

Similarly, the company recorded total revenues of €49.1 million during the first nine months of the year, exceeding its turnover between January and September 2017 by 46%. Meanwhile, Renta Corporación’s EBITDA amounted to €12 million, up by €3 million compared to the previous year.

The sale of several properties in Barcelona and Madrid means that Renta Corporación closed September with an increase in its turnover. Currently, the group’s business portfolio amounts to €179 million. Moreover, the company manages assets for sale in partnership with several real estate funds, with an estimated investment amount of €35 million.

In terms of the purchases made by the group between January and September, highlights include the acquisition of fifteen residential-use properties comprising 1,095 turnkey homes, through its Socimi Vivenio. Those assets are located in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Palma and Málaga and involved the disbursement of €533 million for the company.

Renta Corporación is currently in a process of growth. At the beginning of October, the company announced that it is going to build homes on the site of Esteve’s former headquarters in Barcelona, an asset that it has just purchased from Iberdrola Inmobiliaria.

Orignal story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Sareb Sells 13,000 Properties in Year to August, Up 4.9%

5 October 2018

Sareb sold 12,936 properties in the first eight months of the year, 4.9% more than in the same period in 2017, according to the company’s preliminary data. Of these, 8,017 units corresponded to Sareb’s properties, while the remaining 4,919 were assets that were included as loan guarantees and that developers sold through Sales Revitalization Plans (PDV) to obtain liquidity and reduce or cancel their debt with Sareb.

Of the total amount of properties sold, 87% were residential assets (homes and annexes); 8% were plots of land, and the remaining 3% were commercial properties. Regarding the sales of residential assets, the increase in the sale of homes developed by Sareb stands out – both through the developments on lands owned by Sareb itself, as well as through the completion of unfinished developments-, rebounding by 124% to 1,245 units. The sale of commercial properties also grew by 30% year-on-year in the first eight months of the year, while the sale of land increased by 3%.

Sareb’s operations have allowed it to plough ahead with its mandate to liquidate its portfolio of assets, which, by the end of June, had fallen from its initial high by 28.9%, to 36.128 billion euros, according to the data for the first semester of 2018. Of the total value of the portfolio, 66% corresponds to loans to developers and 34% to other types of properties. The company had also reduced its senior debt by 25.4% to €37.875 billion euros by the end of June.

Between January and June, the period analysed in the report, Sareb sold 10,618 properties, 9% more than in the first half of 2017. Of these, 5,926 were assets of were owned by Sareb itself, and 4,692 were properties that were held as a guarantee.

The largest volume of the residential assets sold that were owned by Sareb was concentrated in Catalonia (19.4%), Comunidad Valenciana (17.7%), Andalucía (14.8%) and Comunidad de Madrid (12.6%), according to the Activity Report for the first semester of 2018.

The company generated revenues of 1.5766 billion euros in the first half of the year, of which 62.4% came from the management and sale of loans, and 37.6% from the activity related to real estate.

In the first semester of 2018, Sareb moved ahead with its configuration of a new territorial structure that will allow it to deepen its knowledge of its portfolio and adapt its supply to the demand found in local markets. At the end of June, the delegations in the Valencian Community and Region of Murcia; and Catalonia, Aragon and the Balearic Islands are fully operational, together with the Madrid Center-Canary Islands delegation, launched in 2016. The delegations of Andalusia and the north-east of Spain will soon start operations aimed at boosting sales in those regions and accelerating the strategy of divestment.

In April, Témpore Properties debuted on the Alternative Stock Market (MAB). The socimi funded by Sareb has a portfolio of some 1,400 homes.

Between January and June, Sareb also continued to promote its real estate development activities, aiming to increase the value of its assets before their eventual sale. At the end of June, the company had invested 99.4 million euros in the completion of unfinished works and the development of its land, which together represented the construction of 6,446 properties.

Original Story: Inmodiário

Translation: Richard Turner

Cerberus Completes Purchase of 35,000 Homes from Santander for €1.5bn

19 September 2018 – Eje Prime

Cerberus is strengthening its presence in the Spanish real estate sector with the purchase of a large portfolio of assets from Banco Santander. The US fund has reached an agreement with the financial entity to acquire a package of 35,700 residential properties for €1.535 billion.

The batch transferred by the Spanish bank has a gross value of €2.791 billion. The investment firm has been awarded the package in the end after significantly reducing the figure of €3 billion that it was expected to pay for the portfolio when the negotiations began.

The president of Banco Santander, Ana Botín, said in a statement that the exact percentage of the stakes that each party will hold in the new company that will be constituted following the formalisation of the transaction has not been determined yet. Nevertheless, Cerberus will control between 51% and 80% of the share capital, according to the senior executive.

Botín, who has indicated that the sale will have an “immaterial” impact on the results of the bank, expects the agreement to crystallise completely during the last quarter of this year or the beginning of 2019.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Residential Assets Displace Offices as the Leading Investment Choice for New Socimis

23 August 2018 – El Confidencial

The configuration of the investment map of the Socimis on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB) has changed drastically following the recent incorporation of the company owned by Santander, BBVA, Acciona and Merlin Properties. With a portfolio comprising 10,700 homes, Testa has placed the residential segment in first position on the investment ranking of new listed companies, relegating the office sector to third place.

In this way, of the 14 new joiners to the MAB so far this year, 30.8% have housing as the main or significant target of their investments, compared with 12.8% of the 20 new companies that made their MAB debuts in 2017. With this boost, offices, which had led the ranking until now, have been relegated to third place with 15%.

The weight of retail premises is also striking since they have increased from 6% to 23%, according to data from Armabex. Beyond specialisation, registered advisors also highlight the leading role of international investors, which account for 43% of the new listed companies.

“The rate of new joiners is expected to continue and this year, we are going to comfortably exceed the total figures recorded last year (44 companies), to more than 70”, said the President of Armabex, Antonio Fernández. Currently, there are 59 Socimis trading on the MAB, which account for 60% of the one hundred or so companies that participate in the Alternative Investment Market.

In terms of the upcoming debuts, the Socimi from Bankinter specialising in the hotel sector, Atom Hoteles, is planning its launch. Other examples include Haya Real Estate, Vía Célere and Azora, whose plans to debut on the stock market have been delayed due to the instability in the international financial markets, the political uncertainty in Spain and the evolution of the businesses themselves. The most recent to debut, at the beginning of August, was Mistral Patrimonio, whose activity focuses on rental homes.

“These companies have evolved towards greater specialisation. They started leading tertiary assets to move towards housing and, now, they are opening up to other segments such as hotels, residences, healthcare complexes, gas stations, etc.”, says Fernando Vives, Technical Director at Alia Tasaciones.

An annual valuation

To ensure transparency, the regulations require that these investment vehicles are listed on a regulated European market, be it the main stock market, the Euronext or the Alternative Investment Market, in a maximum period of two years following their constitution.

Nevertheless, the stock market listing is not the only method of transparency. The MAB has just introduced a new requirement that obliges companies to issue more reports. They will be obliged to undertake an annual valuation of their assets, beyond the initial assessment. (…). “The measure obliges Socimis to provide more information and to incur expenses, but it is very positive at the macroeconomic level and for investors”, says Antonio Fernández (…).

“The Socimis have brought confidence back to the real estate sector after the real estate bubble burst. They are here to stay, taking advantage of the upwards cycle and they will continue to activate the real estate market, above all for tertiary use until at least the end of the cycle (…)”, says Vives.

Original story: El Confidencial (by E. H.)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Stoneweg Invests €200M in Financing of Real Estate Projects

31 August 2018 – El Economista

Last year, the Spanish-Swiss platform Stoneweg, led in Spain by Joaquín Castellví, launched its alternative financing division, to which it has already allocated €200 million to support the development of around 40 real estate projects.

The company headquartered in Geneva (Switzerland) has also raised another €100 million to finance new developments, in which it participates up to a maximum of 60 per cent of the debt.

With the creation of this new line of business, the firm was one of the first to enter the alternative financing market in Spain, a market in which the number of players is growing gradually.

The role that Stoneweg takes in the financing of projects is prior to that of the banks, given that the firm enters in the initial phase of developments, before there is a high level of pre-sales or when a project involves a plot of land that is not yet buildable. For that reason, its financing is more expensive than that offered by the banks, but it provides investors with the opportunity to enter more projects and whereby take full advantage of the upwards cycle currently underway.

Once the developments progress and achieve the parameters requested by the banks, the developers typically cancel the bridge financing in order to resort to traditional means.

In the case of Stoneweg, 50 per cent of the projects in which it has participated to date have been residential, whilst the other half have involved hotels and offices. One of the most significant alliances was closed at the end of last year with Ayco, which subscribed a financing line with an initial drawdown amount of €13 million.

Property developer role

This line of business comes in addition to the firm’s role as a direct investor in the real estate market, where the company has disbursed almost €700 million in recent years. In this way, the firm has starred in one of the largest ever operations in the office market in Barcelona, with the development and subsequent sale of the Luxa Complex in the 22@ district.

The company is continuing to look for opportunities in that segment, both in the Catalan capital and in Madrid, although, currently, housing accounts for the majority of its portfolio, given that it has around 2,000 units under development at different stages.

Through its residential firm Stoneweg Living, the platform has now handed over 150 units and in June, it finished its first development in Madrid, Alfonso X, located in the neighbourhood of Chamberí. Moreover, it recently started work on its first high-end development in the Maresme area of Barcelona, in which it is going to invest around €19 million.

Original story: El Economista (by Alba Brualla)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Lar España Sells 2 Out-of-Town Stores in Pamplona to AEW for €11.5M

3 August 2018 – Eje Prime

Lar España is continuing its selling spree. The Spanish Socimi has divested two out-of-town stores in the Parque Galaria Retail Park in Pamplona for €11.5 million. The buyer is the company Fructiregions Europe, owned by the fund AEW, which has acquired a gross leasable area (GLA) of 4,108 m2, according to a statement filed by Lar with Spain’s National Securities and Exchange Commission (CNMV).

With this operation, the Socimi is strengthening its divestment and asset rotation plan, which it currently has underway and which has allowed it to raise up to €276.5 million to “focus its efforts on strategic commercial assets”, according to explanations from the company.

For the assets sold in Pamplona, Lar España has managed to obtain profits of 37% with respect to the €8.4 million that it paid for them in July 2015. In total, the two out-of-town stores occupy a gross leasable area (GLA) of 4,108 m2.

As well as divesting its non-strategic assets, Lar España has launched a three-year plan that includes the purchase of strategic commercial assets, such as the deal it carried out recently with the Rivas Futura Retail Park (Madrid), which it acquired for €62 million, and the Abadía Shopping Arcade (Toledo), which it purchased for €14 million.

In total, the Socimi has funding to invest €247 million in commercial developments. Examples include Palmas Altas in Sevilla, which will open its doors in 2019, and for whose construction the company has raised almost €100 million in bank financing; and Vidanova Parc, in Sagunto (Valencia), which recently debuted its first phase. Moreover, Lar España is going to spend €49 million on the renovation of retail assets that it holds in its portfolio.

After divesting its logistics portfolio a few weeks ago, for which the fund Blackstone paid €120 million, Lar España now has 18 real estate assets in its portfolio worth €1,401.5 million, of which €1,136.5 million correspond to shopping centres, equivalent to 81% of the total. 6% of the portfolio comprises office buildings, worth €85 million, and the remaining 13% belongs to the residential market, where the company has €180 million in developments under construction.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

MK Premium Buys its First Retail Premise in Barcelona for €1.7M

26 July 2018 – Eje Prime

MK Premium is diversifying its investments. Specialising in the residential market, the Catalan family office has purchased its first retail premise in Barcelona for €1.7 million. The asset is located very close to Las Ramblas in the Catalan capital.

Spanning a retail surface area of 440 m2, the premises are located at number 44 Calle Escudellers, next to Plaza Orwell. The property is going to be renovated to recover the original serigraphs on its façade.

The property acquired by the family office that is owned by the brothers Daniel and Sergio Leiva was constructed in the 16th century, although the upper floors, dedicated to residential use, were built in 1769. The building has been declared an Asset of Cultural Interest by the Town Hall of Barcelona. MK Premium aspires to achieve an annual return of 5.5% from this property, located in one of the prime retail areas of the Catalan capital. The Leiva brothers will establish a monthly rent of €10,500 for the asset.

With this new purchase, the Catalan real estate company has finished the first half of the year with investments worth more than €9.3 million, spread between its offices in Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon and Porto.

MK Premium ventured into Portugal at the beginning of 2018, as reported by Eje Prime. Its commitment to the neighbouring country is in line with the real estate company’s roadmap, which details that it is willing to invest up to €25 million this year.

Specifically, the most recent purchase that the company has carried out in the residential sector was in Lisbon. The Catalan real estate firm invested €0.5 million a few weeks ago in its first residential building in the Portuguese capital, as revealed by Eje Prime.

The family office’s portfolio now contains almost fifty assets, although it still needs to buy many more buildings and premises to reach the target of having eighty properties in its portfolio by the end of this year.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake