Tag: retail space

Inv’t In Commercial Assets Doubles To €920M In 2015

11 December 2015 – Expansión

From €32 million to €920 million in just five years. Those are the figures from the market for investment in commercial premises in Spain. According to the consultancy firm JLL, so far this year, investors and family offices, for the most part, have invested €920 million purchasing commercial premises, almost double the figure recorded in 2014, when they spent €452 million on these types of assets and 29 times the figure recorded in 2010, when investment in this segment amounted to just €32 million.

The almost €1,000 million invested this year has involved the purchase of around 400 properties, including the acquisition of the commercial building Gran Vía 32, which now houses the Irish textile group, Primark’s, largest store in Spain. For this building, Pontegadea, the investment arm of Amancio Ortega, paid €400 million. Another key purchase featured Sfera’s premises on Calle Preciados, 4 (Madrid), for which the fund IVG Inmobilien AG paid €70 million.

The purchase of high street premises has accounted for 23% of all real estate investment in commercial assets (including shopping centres) say the experts at JLL. “If 2014 was characterised by the recovery of the commercial investment market, then 2015 has really consolidated that trend, with total investment of €2,669 million during the first nine months of the year, up by 46% compared with the previous year. We expect that 2015 will finish with a figure of almost €3,000 million”, explain the experts at JLL in their report. By nationality, Spaniards account for 40% of commercial investments (including the purchase of shopping centres), due to the significant investments made by the Socimis.

The intense competition for the purchase of commercial premises has forced many investors to start analysing operations beyond the main shopping streets in Madrid and Barcelona, according to the experts at the consultancy firm. “Although Madrid and Barcelona continue to be the main point of entry for international firms, the low yields (which now amount to around 4%), have caused many investors to show interest in other locations, where investment returns are higher”, they explain. One example of this, is the German fund Patrizia’s first foray into Spain, which acquired a commercial establishment in Málaga leased to H&M.

Rental prices

In the case of rental prices, the market for commercial premises is also showing strong results. Portal de L’Àngel in Barcelona is still the most expensive shopping street in Spain, with an average rent of €250/m2/month, followed by Preciados in Madrid, where rents have increased by more than 6% with respect to the same quarter in 2014, to reach €245/m2/month. “Moreover, the current availability rate is very low in areas such as the Puerta del Sol and Preciados, which are now at full occupancy again”, says JLL.

Following the grand opening of Primark in 2015, we can expect to see the inauguration of Adidas, Tous and Parfois on Madrid’s Gran Vía next year, as well as Céline and Massimo Dutti on the Paseo de Gracia in Barcelona. Moreover, the Japanese fashion house Uniqlo is going to open its first store in Spain, also on the Paseo de Gracia, at number 11, in premises measuring almost 5,000 m2.

Original story: Expansión (by R. R.)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Axa Buys The Cine Rex Building On Gran Vía For €42M

11 December 2015 – El Confidencial

Another high profile operation on Gran Vía. Axa Real Estate, the real estate arm of the French insurance company, has just added another property to its portfolio on the most sought-after thoroughfare in Madrid. This week, the company has reached an agreement to acquire the building that houses Hotel Rex and the historical cinemas of the same name, for €42 million.

The entity won a sales process that was launched at the start of the year by the firm Equity Inmuebles SL, controlled by the Mazon, Calero (owner of the Vincci hotels) and Briones families, which opened the bidding at around €28 million, but which, thanks to the huge appetite that exists to purchase assets on this street, has ended up selling the property for 50% more, according to comments made by several sources in the know.

This is the second operation of this kind that the French firm has closed on this thoroughfare, which last year acquired the former Avenida cinema, at number 37 Gran Vía for almost €80 million. It paid that high figure thanks to the “sweetener” afforded by having the Swedish fashion chain H&M as a tenant; it opened its most iconic store in the capital there in 2009.

For this new operation, Axa’s plans to remodel the building, which measures around 9,000 m2 and to operate it by combining its two current uses as a hotel and retail space. Moreover, the entity is willing to respect the protected nature of the cinemas, which have been closed for several years and which occupy a surface area of almost 700 m2.

Currently, the building houses a 3-star hotel with 147 rooms, managed by the owners of the property. Axa’s idea is to open a high-class establishment, which will add to the resurgence that Gran Vía is experiencing thanks to the boost that Operación Canalejas is generating in the whole area.

Hotel fever

The real estate development, which is being led by OHL Desarrollos, includes the opening of the first Four Seasons hotel in the capital. The hotel chain is proving to be a real magnet, attracting brands of high standing to the Gran Vía area. In fact, experts expect that Grupo Wanda will end up choosing a chain of such standing to manage the hotel that it will open in the Edificio España, although for the time being, the only clue is that it will be a 5-star establishment.

The majority of the new hotels being planned on this thoroughfare are 4-star and 5-star properties, such as: the one due to be opened in the building on Calle Montera, 25-27, owned by the Díaz Estrada family; Gran Vía, 10, which houses the Ministry of Education and which has been acquired by Generali for conversion into a hotel operated by Vinnci; and the Barceló, which has been opened in Torre de Madrid in Plaza de España.

Through this operation involving the Edificio Rex, Axa Real estate joins several other high profile players in the hotel business in the centre of the capital and diversifies its interests, which until now have been very concentrated in the office sector, above all after it acquired 381 Santander branches from the Socimi Uro and after it purchased the headquarters of the Generalitat de Catalunya.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Ruth Ugalde)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Lar España Buys ‘El Rosal’ Shopping Centre For €87.5M

9 July 2015 – Info Bierzo

The Socimi Lar España has acquired the ‘El Rosal’ shopping centre in Ponferrada for €87.5 million, according to Spain’s National Securities Market Commission (CNMV).

According to Lar, El Rosal has a catchment area of more than 200,000 inhabitants and an occupancy rate of 92%. Moreover, its tenants include high profile brands such as Carrefour, Zara, C&A, H&M and Worten.

Lar has taken out a fifteen year loan with CaixaBank amounting to €87.3 million to finance the transaction. It is the second shopping centre that the Socimi has purchased this year, after it acquired ‘As Termas’ shopping centre in April for €67 million.

“We also note that this is the only shopping centre within a 100km radius, which broadens its appeal even further. The fact that Ponferrada and El Bierzo are surrounded by mountains and hills creates a unique catchment area, in which all roads lead to the town in (the province of) León”, says Miguel Pereda, Director at Lar.

The purchase of El Rosal is the largest transaction that Lar has carried out to date, as part of its strategy to acquire “shopping centres that are located in major catchment areas, with potential for growth and no sizeable shopping centres nearby”.

“The centre received more than 5.4 million visitors in 2014…”, says Pereda. Over the medium term, the real estate company plans to invest €3.4 million in operators and on the building.

With this transaction, Lar now has a total investment assets of €658.4 million, of which €368.4 million has been spent on the acquisition of 7 shopping centres, located in Lugo, Guipúzcoa, Palencia, Albacete, Barcelona and Alicante, and now Ponferrada.

The El Rosal complex opened in October 2007 and has a surface area of more than 151,000 m2 (retail space of 50,800 m2), as well as 2,450 parking spaces.

The British fund Doughty Hanson, which owned the shopping centre until Wednesday has sold 100% of the capital. The British firm sold the ‘Plaza Éboli‘ shopping centre, in Pinto, in June for a reported consideration of €30 million. It paid €120 million for the two shopping centres in El Bierzo and Madrid four years ago.

Original story: Info Bierzo

Translation: Carmel Drake

March Family Buys Ahorro Corporación’s HQ

11 May 2015 – Cinco Días

Corporación Financiera Alba, owned by the March family, announced on Friday that it had acquired the headquarters of Ahorro Corporación in Madrid for €147 million.

The property is located at number 89 on Madrid’s Paseo de la Castellana, just 50m away from the Picasso building. The property measures 20,000 square metres, spread across 12 floors of rented offices, another floor containing retail premises and 530 parking spaces. The building’s current tenants include Sareb, Deloitte and Alain Affelou in the offices and Lateral, Maki and New York Burger in the retail area.

Original story: Cinco Días

Translation: Carmel Drake

Caprabo’s Former Owners Put 33 Supermarkets Up For Sale

7 May 2015 – Expansión

The Carbó, Botet and Elías families, i.e. the former owners of the supermarket chain Caprabo, have decided to cash in (some of) the real estate assets they own through their investment vehicle Caboel.

This company was created by Caprabo’s three founding families in 1986, in order to manage the real estate assets owned by the supermarket chain. The Carbó family and its partners excluded the retail premises, warehouses and other properties from the transaction when they sold the company to Eroski in 2007.

Now, Caboel has put a batch of 33 supermarkets up for sale (around a third of the total number they own), most of which are located in Barcelona and its metropolitan area, with a total surface area of 88,410 square metres. The portfolio, known as Blue Box, contains properties that generate annual rental income of €6.93 million.

All of the premises continue to be leased to Caprabo, under long-term contracts (the majority expire on 31 December 2028 and at the end of 2033). The 33 properties include shops measuring just over 500 square metres and one store measuring 18,500 square metres in El Masnou. In addition to the retail space, the properties up for sale include more than 3,000 parking spaces.

Caboel has engaged the consultant CBRE to manage the sale. This lot has generated a lot of interest in the market, due to its “unique” nature. Possible buyers include several Socimis, the real estate division of Generali, Zaphir and Drago Capital, said sources close to the process. Bids (are expected to) amount to around €100 million, explain market sources.

It is expected that binding offers will be received within the next few weeks and that transaction will close before the summer.

Original story: Expansión (by R. Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

AxiaRE Increases Capital By €396M To Fund New Purchases

6 April 2015 – Expansión

The listed real estate investment company (‘sociedad cotizada de inversión inmobiliaria’ or Socimi) Axia Real Estate has announced a capital increase of around €396 million. The operation, which will involve the issue of up to 36 million shares at a minimum price of €11 per share, will allow AxiaRE to continue purchasing real estate assets.

The Socimi also announced the purchase of two office buildings in Madrid: one in the Campo de las Naciones area and another on Calle Juan Ignacio Luca de Tena. In total, AxiaRe has invested €40.5 million in these two purchases.

The real estate company has also signed bilateral financing agreements for several properties, including the offices on Luca de Tena, for which it has signed a loan with CaixaBank for €10.85 million, with a term of 13 years. It has also obtained a €50 million loan from Santander, with a seven year term, to finance the purchase of some (other) offices in Madrid, two warehouses in Guadalajara and a retail space in Tarragona.

Original story: Expansión (by R. Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

UBS Finalises Its Purchase Of The Zielo Shopping Centre

20 March 2015 – Expansión

The Swiss bank’s real estate fund is offering €73 million for the Madrilenian shopping centre, exceeding the expectations of its current owner, Hines, which has invested more than €100 million in its construction.

Another shopping centre is expected to change hands soon. After the French company Klépierre closed its purchase of the Plenilunio shopping centre in Madrid this week, another Madrilenian property will soon have a new owner.

The property in question is the Zielo shopping centre, located in the town of Pozuelo de Alarcón, in Madrid. The building was designed by the real estate company Hines, which took out a loan of €50 million to construct the property. Conceived at the height of the boom (it was opened in October 2009), Hines invested more than €100 million in its development.

The centre, designed by the architect Alberto Martín Caballero, has a surface area of 50,000 square metres, of which 15,537 m2 is dedicated to retail over three floors. It also has more than a thousand parking spaces, the majority of which are indoors.

Five years later, Hines put the “for sale” sign up on its Madrilenian shopping centre in January. The initial asking price was set at €65 million. The Houston-based real estate company decided to sell the property through a restricted (tender) process rather than open it up to all of the interested investors in the Spanish market. Thus, its advisors reached out to the large Spanish Socimis (Merlin Properties, Axia Real Estate and Lar España), as well as the more institutional investment funds such as Deka Inmobilien and the (fund) manager Tiaa Henderson. In the end, the real estate fund owned by the Swiss bank UBS made the best offer and is now negotiating the finer details of the transaction in an exclusive process with Hines.

According to sources close to the process, UBS is offering €73 million. A price that means that the yield on the transaction amounts to less than 5%, a very low figure compared with the figure of 10% that was achieved on the first deals involving the sale and purchase of shopping centres following the burst of the bubble, in 2013.

Zielo Shopping is not the only commercial property that is currently on the market in Spain. According to Deloitte Real Estate, around 80 shopping centres will come onto the market over the next 12 months. Some transactions, such as the purchase of Puerto Venecia in Zaragoza and Plenilunio in Madrid have already been closed. In total, €3,500 million could change hands in this market alone.

Possible buyers include the British real estate company Intu Properties, which is finalising a call option on a real estate project in Málaga, as part of its €2,500 million investment program, and the fund manager CBRE Global Investors, which plans to invest €600 million in shopping centres and retail outlets in the Spanish market.

Original story: Expansión (by Rocío Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Adif Seeks Tenant For Historical Building In Príncipe Pío

9 February 2015 – Expansión

Madrid / The railway management company is looking for a tenant to manage the property, which measures more than 6,000 square metres, for 50 years

The railway management company, Adif, is continuing with the optimisation process of its real estate assets and has decided to put one of its most emblematic buildings in Madrid on the market. The building, located next to the Estación del Norte – known locally as Príncipe Pío – has been empty for years. Adif has decided to confer the management of the building and surrounding area for a term of 50 years. During this period, the new tenant shall pay a fixed annual rent of no less than €150,000 per year, whereby the public company will receive at least €7.5 million from the arrangement.

Historical building

The railway management company will grant both the main building, with has a surface area of more than 6,530 square metres, as well as the free spaces around the building, which have a surface area of approximately 3,429 square metres. The building has “great architectural value and its origins date back to the beginning of the 20th century”, with a large central hall and two towers, according to the terms of reference prepared by Adif.

Nevertheless, the main building is in a “poor condition” and so the tenant will have to undertake a comprehensive renovation project, which will be a key condition of the contract. The cost of the restoration and renovation work may not amount to less than €7 million.

Interested parties have until 2 March to submit their bids and the period for the submission of financial bids will open on 13 March.

This is the second time that Adif has put the Príncipe Pío building on the market. In December 2013, it launched a similar process to award the operation of the property. However, the two bids it received did not meet the conditions established in the terms of reference. To avoid a repetition of this problem, Adif has simplified the conditions, which should facilitate their agreement. The property, which is listed as a Property of Cultural Interest, was renovated in 1999 to house a recreational, cultural and retail centre. Last year, the Community of Madrid extended its permitted use to include offices.

Original story: Expansión (by Rocío Ruiz))

Translation: Carmel Drake

El Corte Inglés Values Its Properties In Galicia At €600m

26 January 2015 – La Voz De Galicia

El Corte Inglés’s Galician assets account for almost 5% of the total, valued at €15,000 million.

The value of the real estate assets owned by El Corte Inglés in Galicia amounts to €601 million. So the company led by Dimas Gimeno revealed in information sent to the Irish Stock Exchange (the stock market in Ireland), on the occasion of its first bond issue (€500 million) placed by Hipercor.

According to the 333-page document, El Corte Inglés owns 217,000 square metres of retail space in Galicia, with an average value of €2,344 per square metre. Overall, the group’s most expensive buildings are located in Madrid (€4,823 million), followed by Andalucía (€2,563 million) and Cataluña (€1,646 million).

The group has explained to the Irish regulator that Tinsa Tasaciones Inmobiliaria valued most of the group’s property portfolio in September 2013 and March 2014, and assigned it an aggregated value of €15,126 million, of which almost 5% (by surface area) is located in the region of Galicia.

Department stores account for the majority of the group’s real estate assets (€9,187 million), followed by hypermarkets (€4,338 million), other retail space (€803 million) and offices and mixed-use properties (€797 million). “The group has developed an irreplicable property portfolio with unique locations” says the group.

At the end of last year, the group had around 1,555 outlets in total, including 88 department stores, 43 hypermarkets, 203 supermarkets and 451 specialist stores.

42 properties

According to the document, at the end of last year, the group’s commercial presence in Galicia comprised 42 outlets located across the four provinces, including Viajes El Corte Inglés offices (15), Sfera stores (11), Bricor stores (4), Óptica 2000 shops (4), Hipercor stores (2), Supercor shops (11) and El Corte Inglés stores (4).

The department store business accounts for almost 60% of the group’s consolidated turnover. Including Hipercor, Sfera and Viajes El Corte Inglés, amongst others, the group’s revenue amounted to €14,291 million in 2013.

Within the department store division, 51.1% of turnover is generated by the fashion, accessories, jewellery and beauty departments, which together accounted for revenues of €3,858 million.

In the document submitted to the Irish regulator, the group also highlighted the importance of its brands (the fashion lines Emilio Tucci, Green Coast, Dustin and Formul@), which now account for 16% of revenues, compared with 11% in 2008.

The group also revealed that approximately 635 million people visited its stores during 2013. Furthermore, 155 million people visited its website, where it has 4.2 million registered users.

Only twelve female directors

In the final part of the report, which focuses on accounting aspects, there is also mention of employment considerations.

For example, last year, its workforce comprised 93,223 employees, however only 12 of its executives were women, compared with 186 men. Also, 4,276 females were employed as supervisors, versus 9,141 men. In stores, however, women were in the majority, with 47,434 female sales assistants, versus 18,283 males.

Original story: La Voz De Galicia (by M. Sío Dopeso)

Translation: Carmel Drake