Santander Could Earn Up To €630M From The Sale Of Popular’s RE

14 July 2017 – Expansión

Santander will make a profit from the clean-up of Popular’s balance sheet. The bank may earn up to €630 million from the sale of its foreclosed assets and doubtful real estate loans, which have a gross value of €30,000 million. The bank’s real estate risk, according to the European authorities, amounts to almost €37,000 million, including the stakes in real estate companies, which amount to around €7,000 million.

These profits will be obtained in the best of the possible scenarios considered by Citi in a report published this week. The North American investment bank was responsible for advising Santander during its purchase of Popular, which ended up being closed for the symbolic price of one euro.

Santander plans to divest all of Popular’s non-performing assets within three years. But Citi thinks that it will have to offer discounts of between 15% and 20% on the net value of the assets to incentivise bids from investment funds and private equity firm, amongst others. The net value of the assets amounts to around €9,300 million with a provisioning level of 69%.

Financial sources believe that Santander will accelerate the sale of Popular’s more impaired properties to clean up that part of the balance sheet before the end of this year. In this way, it may recognise juicy accounting profits, according to the sources. Popular’s real estate portfolio contains €10,500 million in land, hotels and more than 25,000 homes, according to the latest available figures. Half of the properties are located in Andalucía and Valencia.

Ana Botín has set the goal of getting rid of half of Popular’s non-performing assets within a year and a half.

Clean up

To clean up Popular’s toxic assets, Santander is undertaking a capital increase amounting to €7,072 million. The bank will recognise a provision against €7,900 million of Popular’s non-performing assets to increase the coverage level of the real estate risk from 45% to 69%. The average coverage level in the sector is 52%, which is why financial sources say that Santander is likely to mark a milestone that has not been seen in the Spanish banking sector for years: it looks set to sell property at a profit.

Santander is negotiating with the funds to divest Popular’s non-performing assets. It is studying the possibility of creating one or more vehicles to separate the risk linked to property from the acquired entity. Morgan Stanley is advising the bank on the clean-up plan. Some funds, such as Blackstone, Apollo, Bain Capital and Lone Star have approached the bank to understand its strategy.

Santander forecasts that its purchase of Popular will generate cost synergies of around €500 million from 2020 onwards, although Citi elevates that figure to €606 million. The investment bank considers that Santander is being too conservative in its calculations of the return on investment and its impact on earnings per share.

According to Citi, the purchase of Popular will generate a return of 24% for Santander in 2020 in the best-case scenario, above the 13-14% forecast by the entity. And it estimates that the operation will allow Santander to increase earnings per share by 6% in three years, compared to the forecast of 3%.

Leader in Spain

The resultant entity will rise to the top of the market in terms of assets (almost €470,000 million), deposits (€255,000 million) and loans (€249,000 million). (…).

Original story: Expansión (by R. Sampedro)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Servihabitat: House Sales Will Rise By 15.2% In 2017

12 July 2017 – Expansión

According to the “Residential Market in Spain” report compiled by Servihabitat Trends, the analysis platform backed by Servihabitat, house prices are forecast to rise by 4.1% on average this year and the number of sales operations is set to increase by 15.2%, to exceed 465,000.

In addition, the number of new house starts is expected to grow by 15.3% and the number of finished properties will increase by 20.2%, whilst the stock of new homes looks set to decrease by 17.8%.

According to the report, the residential market is showing clear signs of recovery this year.

The CEO at Servihabitat, Julián Cabanillas, has said that “all indicators show that the sector is enjoying sustained and established growth, albeit at different rates. The process of normalisation in the market, with an increase in pressure from demand and the consequent increase in prices, is not happening in a homogeneous way across the country”, he explained.

According to Servihabitat, demand is continuing to rise due to job stability, an increase in household incomes and an increase in the volume of loans granted.

Moreover, demand for investment is growing – it already accounts for between 20% (primary residences) and 22% (holiday homes) of all operations.

The volume of supply of new homes is also continuing its rising trend.

The number of new homes started will increase by 15.3% this year, to 75,500 and the number of finished homes will rise by 20.2% to 48,500.

In terms of construction permits, the figure is expected to amount to almost 116,000 this year, which will represent a rise of 25.9%.

The stock of new homes is set to decrease by 17.8% to amount to 324,000.

According to Cabanillas, the technical stock will amount to between 160,000 and 170,000 homes.

The pressure exerted on demand will drive up prices but in a moderate and non-homogenous way.

This year, the average value of a home is expected to rise by 4.1%.

Cabanillas rules out the possibility of a real estate bubble building in the short and medium term because “the fundamentals are nothing like those that existed before the crisis”.

In terms of the rental market, the report reveals that rental prices rose by between 4% and 5% during the first half of 2017.

Increases of between 2.5% and 5% are expected during the second half of the year, depending on the location of each property.

Servihabitat renders services for the integral management of financial and real estate assets.

Original story: Expansión

Translation: Carmel Drake

KPMG Surveys 148 Directors In The RE Sector

19 May 2017 – Expansión

Directors and entrepreneurs in the real estate sector have faith in the progress of their industry. Moreover, more than half of them believe that the recovery is not very consolidated yet or is still pending consolidation, according to the conclusions of the Outlook for Spain 2017 report, prepared by KPMG in collaboration with the Spanish Confederation of Business Organisations (CEOE), on the basis of the opinions of 148 directors in the sector.

According to the report, 55% of those surveyed think that the recovery is not very consolidated yet or is still pending consolidation and 63% believe that prices will continue their upward trend.

In terms of the perception of the current situation in the sector, 28% consider it to be good or excellent, compared with 35% who consider it to be ok. The prospects for the next 12 months are more optimistic, given that 45% expect the situation in the sector to improve.

Similarly, 91% of directors confirm that during the course of this year, they are going to continue to maintain their levels of investment and may even increase them, and 27% expect to see an increase in their turnover during 2017.

Risks

Regarding the future challenges facing the sector, more than half of the directors surveyed believe that a weakness in demand is the main threat to their businesses.

The respondents also agree that investment in the sector has already reached a high level of maturity. In this way, 40% of those surveyed believe that there is a risk of a new real estate bubble forming over the next few years and one in five regarded that risk as “high”.

Over the next few months, 32% of the directors think that they will focus on international expansion and 25% consider the digital transformation as a strategic priority.

For Javier López Torres, Partner for Real Estate at KPMG in Spain, the current situation in the sector can be explained by differentiating between three scenarios or speeds: those where asset types and location are combined with liquid demand, in such a way that in “general terms”, the reactivation is already being consolidated; those where players are starting to invest and build certain asset types in specific locations; and finally, those where the absorption of specific products will be very slow, given that it does not respond to a real current demand.

Original story: Expansión (by R.A.)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Experts Rule Out Risk Of RE Bubble In The Short Term

10 May 2017 – El Confidencial

The fact that the Spanish real estate market is enjoying happier times is more than clear. And all of the players in the sector are aware of the fact: property developers, consultants, construction companies…Nevertheless, the “overheating” that some say is threatening certain segments of the market, is falling well short of a full-blown real estate bubble, for the time being at least. At least that is according to the speakers who participated in the “Real Estate Investment Opportunities” day organised by El Confidencial and Colonial.

Real Estate Market Forum

Indeed, Juan José Brugera, President of Colonial – which is currently evaluating its transformation into a Socimi – stated that the market is “a long way from a bubble. What we are seeing is the launch of projects”. In this sense, he pointed to the German market by way of example. “It is very stable. (…) What you have to do is take a risk and invest. With this stability in terms of value, your investment will be rewarded”.

In his opinion, “a bubble is something else. It is an excessive value, but, one of the characteristics of the European property sector is that financing is very tight in terms of size and type. I don’t see a bubble, what I see is a more professional management of the assets, where the ability to generate value is what will determine prices, provided the markets are not affected by global circumstances”.

The CEO of the consultancy firm JLL in Spain, Enrique Losantos, also rules out the risk of a bubble. “Given current prices, you could be forgiven for thinking that the market is overheating, but the fact is, there is still a long way to go, especially for those investors who know how to extract value from the portfolios of assets that are coming onto the market and which should be invested in and managed to adapt them to the demands of the current market. These players will be able to obtain returns, even in the double digits (…)”.

Who will control the large rental stock?

Meanwhile, Ignacio de la Torre, Chief Economist at Arcano, said that “there is not a bubble at the moment, but if we continue at this rate, there will be one”, especially in the residential market. He highlighted the significant interest that certain assets have sparked in Spain, such as, for example, rental homes, especially amongst institutional investors. “When everything was clogged up, it seemed like Spain was going to go bankrupt, but then investors with large risk appetites entered the market to inject liquidity and the economy started to work again. Now, those hedge funds are starting to recycle the assets they bought and as the market for rental homes increases, so institutional investors are entering the segment, which is what is happening in other countries too. In the future, insurance companies and pension funds are expected to become the owners of the large stock of rental housing in Spain. (…).

Original story: El Confidencial (by E. Sanz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Blackstone Sells c. €300M Of Catalunya Banc’s Mortgages

8 May 2017 – Expansión

The banks’ non-performing assets are finally starting to generate returns for some of the entities that backed them during the worst moments of the crisis. Four and a half years after Catalunya Banc fell victim to the excesses of the real estate sector and was intervened by the State, and two years after Blackstone finalised its purchase of a portfolio of doubtful mortgages from the Catalan entity, which is now owned by BBVA, the US firm has shown that what were once toxic assets, are toxic no more.

And it has done so through the sale of some of the mortgages that it bought from Catalunya Banc. In fact, Blackstone has created a securitisation fund, with a nominal portfolio of €400 million in loans, and has placed it amongst investors at a price that represents selling almost €300 million of the total without a discount, according to official documentation submitted by the company.

Given that Blackstone purchased mortgages from Catalunya Banc worth almost €6,400 million nominal and that it paid €3,600 million for them, the fact that it has now sold the majority of the securitisation fund at its nominal value implies that investors no longer consider them to be problem loans and that they are willing to buy them without demanding an additional return for any higher risk.

Of course, there are several factors that have contributed to this. “Blackstone has included the best loans from the portfolio in the securitisation fund”, say sources in the market, who insist that the US firm still owns the majority of the loans it purchased two years ago.

In addition, the management of the loans plays a role, given that 82.75% of them have been restructured, according to figures from Fitch, which means that they have been granted grace periods or parallel financing since Blackstone took over the portfolio.

Different tranches

The result of these two factors is that Tranches A and B of the securitisation fund have been sold to investors without any discount on their nominal values. They will pay annual interest of 0.9% and 1.9%, respectively, until 2022 (from April of that year, the yield will rise to 1.6% and 3.3%).

The two tranches amount to €288 million, i.e. they represent 72% of the total fund. Meanwhile, Tranches C and D, which contain the worst mortgages and which have the lowest solvency rating, have been sold for 98% and 93% of their nominal values and will pay interest of 2.5% and 2.6%, respectively, for the first five years. Tranche E, the most risky, has been subscribed in its entirety by Blackstone, at a significant discount. (…).

Original story: Expansión (by Inés Abril)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Popular Puts €500M Distressed Asset Portfolio Up For Sale

21 April 2017 – El Mundo

Banco Popular, the Spanish entity that is under the most pressure from the ECB to accelerate the cleanup of its balance sheet, is starting to debut on the wholesale market, in search of investors interested in its portfolios of distressed assets. The entity has committed to eliminating €15,000 million from its balance sheet by 2018, which represents almost half of its total risk.

The latest move has been to put a portfolio of distressed assets up for sale, amounting to €500 million. The portfolio is sparking potential interest amongst funds that specialise in buying portfolios at low prices to generate returns from them later through the recovery of their value or their resale. Banco Popular told this newspaper that it does not have any portfolios of that kind up for sale and that it only publicises such operations once they have been completed, however, two financial sources consulted separately, confirmed otherwise.

The portfolio up for sale is the largest, by volume, that the entity has marketed since it began its timid cleanup process at the end of 2016. In January, whilst the entity’s former Chairman was in the middle of being replaced, Popular sold a portfolio of debt, amounting to €200 million and secured by hotel assets. It also placed a €400 million portfolio, secured by homes, parking spaces and storerooms. The purchasers in those cases were the investment funds Apollo and Blackstone, respectively.

The sense in the financial markets is that this move by Banco Popular will be the first of many whereby the entity will try to offload new portfolios of assets in order to fulfil the “ambitious and realistic” strategies that the regulators have been requiring of it since 20 March to clean up its balance sheet and achieve the established capital and risk coverage ratios.

Changes in the sector

In fact, Popular is far from the only entity to be placing portfolios of this kind on the market. So far this year, entities such as Bankia, Sabadell, Deutsche Bank and BBVA have placed €1,600 million with specialist funds such as Blackstone, Grove and Oaktree. (…).

Original story: El Mundo (by César Urrutia)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Sareb’s Investors Will Lose 30% Of Their Investment

7 April 2017 – Expansión

Sareb, the bad bank that took over most of the toxic real estate assets from the banks intervened by the State through the Frob, announced a substantial modification to its business plan last week. The change represents an acknowledgement of the fact that, at the end of the entity’s life, in 2027, its shareholders will have lost 30% of their initial investment, almost €1,440 million. As such, the shareholders are going to have to recognise provisions for that impairment this year.

The creation of Sareb (which began operating in 2013) was conducted after the State received European aid to clean up the domestic financial system. It was not possible before because the Treasury did not have sufficient funds to do launch the initiative alone.

In an attempt to ensure that the State’s contribution would not add to the public deficit, a procedure was carried out whereby the private banking sector, insurance companies and some real estate companies contributed most of the necessary own funds (55%) and the Frob contributed the remaining 45%. This meant that in total, €4,800 million was contributed, €1,200 million in the form of capital and €3,600 million in the form of subordinated debt, convertible into capital, which would receive a relatively high remuneration if the company were to generate profits.

Sareb obtained the other resources required to pay for the real estate assets acquired from the banks in difficulty, by issuing debt over one, two and three years, which the entities from which the assets had been acquired were obliged to subscribe to and which is now being renewed for equal periods as it matures, but in reducing amount thanks to Sareb’s ability to generate funds to repay it.

All of the private banks, with the exception of BBVA, answered the call of the economic authorities and invested on the basis of their size. Santander put €805 million in the pot; CaixaBank, €581 million; Sabadell, €321 million; Popular, €276 million, and Kutxabank, €122 million. The other entities contributed smaller but no less representative amounts, based on their size.

Initially, the business plan forecast that the entity would become profitable after five years and it was stated that the company would generate an annual return of 14% over the course of its 15-year life. (…).

When the President of the entity, Belén Romana, was replaced by Jaime Echegoyen, that long-term business plan was modified to try to bring it closer to the reality of the problem assets whose orderly exit is complicated and whose profit generating ability is pretty much impossible.

The Ministry of Economy decided that the supervisor of Sareb’s accounts should be the Bank of Spain because the assets had come from financial institutions and because a large part of them were essentially problem loans. The supervisor established some very strict accounting standards regarding provisions (…), which forced the bad bank to register losses from its first year onwards, which reduced the level of capital subscribed by the shareholders by the same proportion. (…).

The evolution of the market and of Sareb itself have meant that, again, a revised business plan is being prepared to reflect the latest reality, which, according to the statement made to shareholders last week, not only completely abandons the plans for Sareb’s owners to obtain any returns from the risk they have borne, but also recognises that the total liquidation of the assets will result in losses of around 30% on the capital and debt invested. In other words, the investors will recover €3,360 million at most and will certainly lose €1,440 million. The Frob stands to lose the most: almost €650 million.

Most, if not all of those who invested in Sareb understood that they were providing a service to the country and that obtaining any returns was very unlikely and that there may be losses at the end of the process. Losses that they would recognise when the time came.

But the situation has now changed. This latest announcement means (….) that the shareholders have no choice but to recognise provisions for the losses announced this year. That means a new effort for the banks, some of which are already very stretched in terms of their provisions for this year.

Original story: Expansión (by Salvador Arancibia)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Alternative Assets: Investors In Spain Get More Adventurous

16 March 2017 – Expansión

Over the last two and a half years, investors’ appetite for real estate assets and the lack of investment alternatives have resulted in a compression in yields in Spain. Parking lots, storerooms, gas stations, student halls and nursing homes/hospitals have sparked interest from investors specialising in alternative assets.

Although in some European countries, such as the UK, these business segments are already well established, the markets are not very mature in Spain. Nevertheless, they have potential for growth, according to the experts. “In Europe, total real estate investment volume amounted to around €254,000 million in 2016, of which 14% related to alternative assets. In Spain, that percentage was much lower”, explained Alberto Valls, Partner in Financial Advisory at Deloitte.

Nick Wride, Director of Alternative Investments at JLL, said that these sectors are consolidating in other countries, which means that the yields that investors can achieve in those countries are not as attractive anymore due to the (high level of) competition. “European markets such as Spain are becoming interesting again”, he said.

The Director of the Corporate Finance department at Aguirre Newman, Alfonso Aramendía Peralta, said that although it is a “relatively new” segment in Spain, it is sparking a lot of interest “given that it offers more attractive returns than those generated by more established products such as offices, residential assets and shopping centres, where there is more competition”. (…).

Valls highlights the advantages of these assets, which include, the high management component, as this leads to higher returns, albeit with higher risk, and the fact that these assets are less exposed to economic cycles than traditional properties. (…).

Sources at Knight Frank explain that these kinds of assets are known for their long-term lease contracts, which tend to last more than 10 years; moreover, they offer returns of around 6% or more in some cases. (…).

Fragmented market

The alternative real estate investment market includes assets ranging from parking lots to storerooms – a very fragmented segment – to health centres, nursing homes and student halls of residence, with a very significant management component. In this sense, Aramendía points out that they are assets that suffer more wear and tear, due to their intensive use and therefore, they require tenants that are able to commit CapEx to maintain them in good condition.

Whilst the volume of transactions involving alternative assets has been relatively low in recently years, if we consider the corporate operations undertaken by industrial groups that have a strong real estate component such as Quirón, Parkia, Vitalia and SARquavitae, then we see that 2016 was, in fact, a record year.

Consolidation

Experts think that the likely consolidation of these industrial groups will allow investors demanding higher volumes to enter Spain and may even lead to a boom in specialist Socimis, like has happened in other countries.

Moreover, according to the consultancy firms, one of the ways of financing the growth of these groups now involves the sale of properties to a fund specialisation in the real estate sector. (…).

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Project Gold: Bankia Puts €180M Loan Portfolio Up For Sale

20 February 2017 – Expansión

Bankia, the fifth largest bank in Spain, has just put a €180 million doubtful debt portfolio up for sale. The package contains loans to property developers and is being marketed under the name Project Gold, according to market sources.

Specifically, the portfolio comprises loans granted to small and medium-sized companies in Spain, many of which are property developers.

Last year, the entity managed to close several operations of this kind for €455 million in total, according to its income statement. However, none of those deals featured in the top fifteen largest transactions of 2016 by volume.

Portfolio sales, along with debt recovery processes, have decreased Bankia’s doubtful debt balance by 12.5%, according to annual data. Over the last year, the group has reduced the perimeter of its foreclosed assets by 16.4%. The coverage ratio of its doubtful balances amounts to 55%, which is above average for the sector.

Bankia has a significantly lower exposure to property developer risk than the other large banks because it offloaded the majority of its problematic assets to Sareb, the bad bank, as did the other savings banks that were rescued using public money. Only 1% of Bankia’s business comes from that sector.

Original story: Expansión

Translation: Carmel Drake

PwC: Spain’s RE Sector Retains Appeal As World Uncertainty Intensifies

26 January 2017 – Cinco Días

According to the findings of the Real Estate Market Trends in Europe 2017 report, prepared by PwC and the Urban Land Institute, the real estate market is currently preparing itself to face a 2017 full of geopolitical uncertainties, just like it had to last year when Spain had an acting Government for more than 10 months. The RE report has been compiled on the basis of a survey of 781 of the main players operating in the sector.

In this way, the year that has just begun is probably full of more uncertainties across more countries than ever before (Brexit and up-coming elections in France, Germany and The Netherlands, as well as potential repercussions from the new policies of Donald Trump in the USA) and in the face of such situations, investors tend to react with caution.

In the real estate sector, experts forecast that the market will continue to evolve in a positive way because it will remain attractive thanks to the relationship that exists between risk and return. Within Europe, Spain stands out amongst the major markets thanks to its attractive prices and the potential it has across many segments, such as the hotel sector, residential segments (including halls of residence for students, nursing homes for the elderly and the health sector) and offices for shared services.

In this way, the experts that participated in the preparation of this study agreed that whilst the returns offered by the real estate sector in the main countries in Europe will grow at a slower rate because this business is starting to stabilise, Spain will continue to be one of the most attractive destinations.

In terms of the potential effect of Brexit, most investors agree that its impact is going to be limited to the British real estate sector and will not have a significant impact on property-related investments in other EU countries. What’s more, 76% of those surveyed said that, in their opinion, such investments will be maintained or may even increase. Nevertheless, the expectations in terms of returns from the real estate sector as a whole across Europe are more moderate this year following several years of extraordinary growth.

Moreover, 35% of those surveyed expect to receive lower returns on their assets over the next 12 months and 53% recognise that it will be very hard to improve upon the returns achieved last year. Another aspect described in this report is that the European market in general and the Spanish market in particular is characterised by a scarcity of prime or premium assets and the feeling is, according to 58% of those surveyed, that those assets that are available, are starting to become over-valued. In this environment, “the importance of asset management intensifies as it is the key element for managing risk and return”, explained Rafael Bou, Partner responsible for Real Estate at PwC. (…).

Looking ahead to the future, 91% of those surveyed said that technology “is going to change” the way we use real estate assets. The most important trends between now and 2030 relate to: the boom of the collaborative economy, robotisation, teleworking, self-driving cars and new buying habits.

According to the report, Berlin leads the ranking of European cities with the best investment prospects for the second year in a row. Madrid and Barcelona occupy 9th and 16th positions, respectively, given the “strong outlook for rents and the improvement in the country’s overall situation”.

Original story: Cinco Días (by Raquel Díaz Guijarro)

Translation: Carmel Drake