Ana Botella & 7 of Her Officials Sentenced to Pay €22.7M for the Sale of Flats to Vulture Funds

28 December 2018 – Voz Pópuli

The Court of Auditors has sentenced the former mayor of Madrid, Ana Botella (pictured below) and six high-ranking officials of her municipal Government to pay €22.5 million for the sale of 1,860 publicly owned flats to two companies owned by Blackstone, considered to be a vulture fund, for a price below that stipulated by the market in 2013. Another senior official, Fermín Osle, has been sentenced to pay more than €3 million for his role as the “accountant directly responsible” for the operation.

The ruling, revealed by Cadena Ser, concludes that the eight people now condemned “engaged in serious negligence” by not preventing “damage to public property” by selling the homes for €128.5 million when, according to the calculations of the Court of Auditors, Botella’s Executive could have received proceeds of more than €151 million.

The sentence is based on a claim filed a year ago by the current Government of the Spanish capital, led by Manuela Carmena, through the Municipal Housing and Land Company (EMVS). The ruling determines that the operations carried out by the Municipal Housing Company that reported into the Government “led to an unjustified impairment of public property”, which they estimate amounted to €23 million.

The other condemned officials are Enrique Núñez Guijarro, Diego Sanjuanbenito, Paz González García, Dolores Navarro, Pedro Corral and Concepción Dancausa, former delegate of the Government of Madrid.

They will appeal the sentence

The former mayor and her then municipal government team are going to appeal the sentence, according to sources, after hearing the content of the ruling, since “they do not agree with it”. They also noted that the Prosecutor of the court has already requested the dismissal of this claim “for not having any accounting responsibility”.

In the same way, they have indicated that the previous Governing Board of the Town Hall of Madrid “did not intervene directly or indirectly in the operation to sell the homes” to which the decision by the Court of Auditors refers. “Only, and in its capacity as the General Shareholders’ Meeting of the aforementioned company, did they ratify the feasibility plan that the EMVS’s Board of Directors had already approved”, they highlighted.

Original story: Voz Pópuli (by Carlos Frías)

Translation: Carmel Drake

A Judge Orders the Demolition of 52 Villas in O Grove (Galicia)

8 November 2018 – Inmodiario

Administrative Court number 1 of Pontevedra has confirmed the demolition order for 52 homes in the Raeiros urbanisation, located in San Vicente do Mar (O Grove), as well as of the roads and large movements of earth undertaken in the area, classified as non-buildable land with special coastal protection. An appeal against the ruling may be filed with the TSXG (the Superior Court of Justice of Galicia).

In the ruling, the judge dismissed the appeal presented by one of the owners against the resolution adopted in October 2017 by the Agency for the Protection of Legal Urban Planning (APLU), which requires the owners of the 52 villas to comply with a demolition order dated 2014.

The demolition was decreed by the Xunta for the first time in 2010. The Administrative Court also imposed the payment of the costs on the claimant.

The ruling explains that the legislation prohibits the residential use of that type of land, a woodland area that overlooks the Balea-Raeiros beach.

In 1993, the owner obtained a licence to build an aparthotel for tourist use on the site, but, according to the judgement, constructed 52 terraced villas for residential use and sold them to different owners.

In 2007, the Xunta required them to implement hotel use and to dissolve the parcelation by joining together all of the houses into a single asset, but that order was ignored.

In 2010, the APLU ordered the demolition and ordered it again in 2014. The Administrative Court number 1 of Pontevedra confirms in its ruling that most recent demolition order.

“The construction licence was linked to the activity. Without the hotel use (without parcelation) everything that has been constructed lacks sense”, said the judge in the ruling, in which he also pointed to the possibility that the hotel licence granted in 1993 may have expired.

Original story: Inmodiario

Translation: Carmel Drake

FAI: More than 8,000 Mortgages Paralysed by Supreme Court Ruling

26 October 2018 – Eje Prime

Real estate companies are warning of the impact of the legal battle over mortgages. The Federation of Real Estate Associations (FAI) estimates that more than 8,000 mortgage operations have been paralysed across Spain as a result of the decision taken by the Supreme Court that it should be the banks that pay the Documentation Registration Tax (AJD).

Similarly, the body has warned of the consequences generated by the delays and has asked entities to act “responsibly” towards their clients, given that “they may incur breaches in any “contratos de arras” they have already signed because of the delays in the signing of the mortgage loans”, according to Europa Press.

In this sense, the President of the FAI, Nora García Donet, stated that in light of the “uncertainty” generated, “the banks have delayed more than one third of the signings planned for the coming days”.

The FAI, constituted in March 2013, comprises twenty regional and local real estate associations from all over Spain. Currently, the entity groups together more than 850 real estate agencies and 3,730 professionals.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Andorran Banks Finance FC Barcelona’s Repurchase of Land in Can Rigalt

16 October 2018 – Eje Prime

FC Barcelona has obtained Andorran financing to purchase Can Rigalt. The Catalan club has signed a €20 million loan over four years with MoraBanc to comply with the ruling won by the real estate company La Llave de Oro for the plots of land, located in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, according to the sports newspaper Palco23.

The operation in Can Rigalt dates back to 1998 when the board, chaired at the time by Josep Lluís Núñez, acquired those plots near the Camp Nou to build a sports city. Nevertheless, the project was abandoned and it was not until 2005 when the former-President Joan Laporta managed to transfer them to the real estate firm La Llave de Oro for €35.4 million. Nevertheless, the purchase contract included a series of clauses whose breach allowed the company to undo the purchase and recover its money. And that is what has ended up happening.

The most important point and the one that ended up tipping the balance against FC Barcelona during the arbitration proceedings was the obtaining of permits to build homes. The first arbitration award established that 30 July 2014 was the deadline for the club to fulfil and ensure that the Town Hall of L’Hospitalet and the other players involved had facilitated the urban planning process. Nevertheless, the burst of the real estate bubble left the operation up in the air and the group requested a new arbitration award to resolve the operation.

That ruling came in June 2016, when the Arbitration Court of Barcelona corroborated that, after ten years, the requirements established in the purchase contract had not been met. For that reason, it forced the sports entity to return the €35.4 million that it had charged for the land, as well as some legal interest amounting to €11.6 million. The entity tried to negotiate a discount, although its annual report confirms that, in the end, it made the payments established in the ruling.

In the Camp Nou offices, there is not too much hope regarding the future of these plots, which spans 10,000 m2 and have a significant volume of buildable space. In fact, a decision was taken to impair the potential of this asset by €29 million in the accounts for 2016-2017, placing its accounting value at €8.44 million, as revealed by this newspaper. It is “a reasonable valuation established by an independent expert”, says the entity, which trusts that the evolution of technology will allow it to reduce the costs of converting the electricity sub-station next to the land and its transformation is what makes the real estate operation unviable today.

This is not the only urban planning project that FC Barcelona has faced problems with. Laporta also forecast the construction of Barça Park in 2007-2008, a thematic space, next to the Barcelona-El Prat Airport. The club paid €18.74 million for the land, but never managed to overcome the administrative procedures due to the breach of several environmental rules that prevented the development there of any kind of sporting, leisure or training activity. Last year, it applied an additional depreciation of €1.13 million and today its value amounts to just €3.07 million.

Original story: Eje Prime (by M. Menchén)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Trinitario Casanova Sells Large Plot In North Madrid To Gestilar-Morgan

13 November 2017 – El Confidencial

It has taken Trinitario Casanova more than a year to make his move since he became a landowner in Valdebebas, one of the main areas of development in the north of Madrid. But in the end, he has acted and he has done so with one of the new stars in the market, the joint venture created by Gestilar and Morgan Stanley. The parties are currently finalising an agreement, which, if nothing goes wrong, will be signed this week and which will result in the sale of all Casanova’s residential plots.

It was in the spring of 2016 when the owner of the Baraka Group purchased Parque Empresarial El Olivar, a company owned by the Cort Lagos family. With it, he acquired 114,000 m2 of land, spread over eight residential plots, plus one for industrial and commercial use that by itself measured 46,000 m2.

Since then, Casanova has been focused on removing the company from the bankruptcy situation that it fell into four years ago and which had reached the liquidation phase when Baraka appeared. This objective was achieved on 27 September, when the Mercantile Court number 5 of Madrid resolved “to declare the reactivation of the dissolved company Parque Empresarial del Olivar”, according to the ruling to which El Confidencial has had access.

With this sentence in his hand, Trinitario has been able to sit down and negotiate, with ease, to sell the three residential plots that he still owns in Valdebebas, given that the other five were auctioned off before Baraka managed to purchase Parque Empresarial and were pre-awarded to Grupo Amenábar and Premier. The party chosen by the businessman as the new owner of his land is the joint venture that Gestilar and Morgan Stanley have created.

The property developer owned by the García-Valcárcel family has been analysing these plots in Valdebebas for a while, and other giants, such as Castlelake, the fund behind Aedas Homes, had also expressed their interest in the past. The negotiations accelerated following Parque Empresarial’s exit from bankruptcy and last week, they managed to reach the point of agreement, according to the sources consulted.

As El Confidencial revealed, Gestilar and Morgan Stanley have constituted a joint venture, which they plan to endow with €100 million, whose vocation is to acquire plots of land over the next four or five years. They plan to build around 1,000 new homes thereon, a figure that equals the entire portfolio that Gestilar currently has under development.

An important portion of this plan may be achieved only with the success of the operation in Valdebebas, one of the most sought-after areas in Madrid, and therefore in all of Spain, but also one of the areas most affected by legal uncertainty. For years now, the courts have been ruling against the way in which this development has been carried out, which has forced licence granting processes to be suspended on several occasions.

Trinitario Casanova, who took on the debt of Parque Empresarial when he acquired the entity, will continue to be present in the development, as he will retain control of the 46,000 m2 industrial and commercial plot, where he wants to boost the activity of his construction company Trabis, an aim that is always behind the real estate movements of the Baraka Group.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Ruth Ugalde)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Madrid’s Most Indebted Town To Pay €3M More Due To Fraudulent Ex-Mayor

20 October 2017 – El Confidencial

The political legacy of Baltasar Santos (pictured below), who served as the mayor of Navalcarnero for 20 years (between 1995 and 2015), is still taking its toll on the public coffers. According to the Ministry of Finance, Navalcarnero is the most indebted town in the Community of Madrid (and number 24 in the ranking for the whole of Spain). Each one of its 27,000 residents owed more than €3,700 as at the end of 2016. Then, the tax authority based its calculation of financial debt of €101 million, although the current Government estimates that the figure is more like €230 million. And that amount is expected to increase gradually due to the steady trickle of legal rulings that are going to be made against the previous Town Hall due to mismanagement by the former PP-party mayor.

The most recent ruling, issued by the Provincial Court of Madrid on 28 September, ordered the Town Hall to pay €2.8 million (plus legal interest) to around fifteen local residents and companies because the local Government, led then by Santos, sold them land that was not actually owned by the Town Hall (…).

This is the first ruling of its kind, but José Luis Adell, the current (socialist) mayor, expects that more will follow, unfortunately, against the Town Hall due to the “disastrous management by Santos” (…). We estimate that we are going to pay around €70 million in relation to these types of rulings, which will increase the municipal debt to €300 million (…).

Nobody knows where Baltasar Santos is now. He was expelled from the PP in 2015, after hiding from the party that he had been charged for several legal misdemeanours. Santos participated in the municipal elections that year with another political party, URCI (…) but resigned just a few months later, in October 2015, just like he had done previously. Nobody has replaced him. The Town Hall has created an investigation committee to analyse his management. Moreover, it has engaged legal counsel so that all of the irregularities that have been detected can be brought to justice and it has asked the Chamber of Accountants to audit Navalcarnero’s accounts for the financial years from 2007 until 2015.

Original story: El Confidencial (by David Fernández)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Santander Unblocks Sale Of Ciudad Financiera After AGC’s Mega-Offer

15 September 2017 – Voz Pópuli

The soap opera involving the sale of Santander’s Ciudad Financiera is closer than ever to being resolved. The Arab fund AGC Equity Partners, Santander and the majority of the creditors have reached an understanding to unblock the process, which has been stalled for three years, after the company that administers Santander’s global headquarters, Marme Inversiones 2007, filed for bankruptcy.

The key has been the size of the new offer presented in recent months by AGC, amounting to around €2,800 million, according to financial sources consulted by Vozpópuli. With this proposal, all of the creditors would receive the amounts due to them and there would even be some funds left over to share out amongst Marme’s original shareholders: the property magnate Glenn Maud and the fund Aabar Investments, controlled by IPIC, which owns Cepsa.

AGC has already informed the judge handling the bankruptcy – at Mercantile Court number 9 in Madrid – that the situation is now ready to be unblocked. But the magistrate has left everything hinging on the Provincial Court, which still has to resolve several prior appeals. Various sources consulted indicate that these resolutions could be resolved by the end of this year or the beginning of 2018. Then the formal auction of the company that owns the Ciudad Financiera could be launched, with AGC as the main favourite, assuming no last minute surprises.

Santander’s role

One of the keys behind sorting out the sale of the Ciudad Financiera is that Santander has withdrawn an appeal that threatened to perpetuate the bankruptcy process. In this way, the bank chaired by Ana Botín, advised by Clifford Chance, decided to submit a letter alleging that the Marme liquidation plan was not taking into accounts its right to sound out the market (for potential buyers).

In addition, Santander engaged Goldman Sachs to look for offers that would better fit with their interests. Paradoxically, the firm that is now best positioned to win – AGC – is the same one that blocked the bank’s appeal. According to legal sources, Santander pays an annual rent of around €110 million for the property and the rental contract runs until 2048, neither of which would vary under the new owner. But there are other clauses in the agreement that would be changed in favour of Santander.

The final stumbling block is the position of two of the players that invested in Marme Inversiones after it filed for bankruptcy: Aabar Investment, which purchased the shares of one of the original shareholders, the British businessman Derek Quinlan, and which would like to buy the Ciudad Financiera itself; and the Luxembourg company Edgeworth Capital, led by the controversial Iranian banker Robert Tchenguiz.

Sources close to the process think that it will be hard for their appeals to gain traction in the face of AGC’s willingness to repay all the creditors; something that no other investor has offered until now. The other recent offers amounted to between €2,400 million and €2,500 million.

Origin of the problem

Marme Inversiones 2007 filed for bankruptcy in 2014 after it was unable to pay its debts. The company was created in 2008 with very heavy financial burdens, at the worst time, shortly after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. Marme paid €1,900 million for Santander’s headquarters in Boadilla del Monte.

Now the situation is just the opposite. The good times in the market mean that obtaining financing is cheaper than it has been for the last decade, something that AGC wants to take full advantage of to seal this complex operation.

Original story: Voz Pópuli (by Jorge Zuloaga)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Núñez i Navarro Doubled Its Profits In 2016 To €33.1M

5 September 2017 – Eje Prime

Núñez i Navarro recorded a good set of results last year. The company, the largest unlisted real estate company in Cataluña, saw its profits soar in 2016 to €33.1 million, up from €12.9 the previous year. In this way, the group has returned to growth and is getting closer to its best result ever, recorded in 2007 when it generated a profit of €48.6 million.

The group attributes the increase in its net result to an improvement in its recurrent rental income, a recovery in the value of its assets, which had depreciated during the crisis, and income resulting from a ruling, confirmed by the Supreme Court, which obliged Endesa to indemnify the company for the purchase and sale of real estate in Palma de Mallorca, according to Crónica Global.

By contrast, Núñez i Navarro’s turnover fell in 2016. The company recorded revenues of €110 million, down by 5.1% compared to the same period a year earlier, when its sales amounted to €116 million. The company’s consolidated own funds rose to €595 million.

The group’s business lines include property development and the operation of real estate assets, in particular offices, retail stores, homes, car parks, industrial warehouses and hotels.

The group’s Board of Directors still comprises members of the founding family. It includes Josep Lluís Núñez Clemente, his wife María Navarro Obón and their sons Josep Lluís and Josep María Núñez Navarro.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

InTempo Case: Judge Ratifies Sareb As Privileged Creditor

16 February 2017 – Diario Información

The ruling dismisses claims made by companies and individuals in the bankruptcy of Olga Urbana, by stating that the bad bank was not responsible for administering the company.

“The engagement of Suasor was justified by the circumstances of the construction work” and “there is no evidence” that that company, Abanca or Sareb acted as de facto administrators. The judge of Commercial Court number 1 in Alicante has dismissed three claims, made by companies and professionals that participated in the construction of the InTempo building in Benidorm, and has rejected the possibility of revoking Sareb’s status as a privileged creditor. This decision, which according to sources close to proceedings could still be appealed, opens the way for the so-called bad bank to end up being awarded ownership of the tallest skyscraper in the tourist city. Construction of the skyscraper is currently suspended, pending resolution of the liquidation process in which its developer, the company, Olga Urbana, is immersed.

The ruling, to which this newspaper had access yesterday, is uncompromising given that it does not reflect the claims of the minority creditors. By contrast, it attributes the exhaustive control exerted by the financial entities involved, Abanca – formerly Caixa Galicia – and Sareb – which inherited the loan due to a legal mandate to free Abanca from its toxic assets – through Suasor, to the situation in which the construction of this concrete giant found itself, which meant that engaging an external company to control and verify how the project was being managed was completely “justified”. (…).

Background

The incidental claims that the judge has now dismissed were filed by Kono Estructuras, a company that participated in the construction work and which is represented in the creditors’ bankruptcy to claim the payment of just over €1 million; the architect Robert Pérez Guerras, who also demanded the payment of a debt amounting to €133,019 for fees that he failed to receive when he left the Project Management team; and Isidro Bononat. All of them challenged the list of creditors prepared by the bankruptcy administrator, on the basis that Sareb, which is claiming the payment of just over €108 million, should not be accorded the status of privileged credit, but rather should rank as a subordinated creditor, given that it served as a de facto administrator of Olga Urbana and therefore, should assume some of the responsibility for its bankruptcy. (…).

The ruling from Commercial Court number 1 is clear. It states that the engagement of an external supervisor is “normal” in high-profile developments, such as the case of InTempo and that, in this case, Suasor limited its scope to controlling the progress of the construction work, and did not interfere the internal operations of the construction company.

Progress towards liquidation

This ruling represents another step forward in the InTempo liquidation process and, moreover, opens an important avenue in Sareb’s favour. The open auction to sell the building received just two bids: one for €47 million and the other for €52 million, which was ruled out because it arrived 20 days late. Both bids fell well below the appraisal value of the property, €90 million, and so Sareb, as a privileged creditor, submitted its own offer of €58.5 million, to be awarded the building. The claims paralysed that process but now that they have been resolved, all indications are that it may be reactivated.

Original story: Diario Information (by R. Pagés)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Project Maravillas: Construction Work Resumes

30 December 2016 – Expansión

Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJM) lifted the injunction issued the day before that had paralysed the demolition work at the Precision Artillery Workshop, located next to Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid, where the Residencial Maravillas cooperative plans to construct 320 new homes.

After obtaining approval from the Town Hall of Madrid, the project promoted by Domo Gestora was paralysed after the TSJM admitted the request filed by the ‘Ecologistas de Acción’ group to not demolish the Precision Artillery Workshop, located on this site.

The building forms part of the properties that the Ministry of Defence used to own on the plots, and according to the ruling from the TSJM, it does not have any historical value or need to be maintained for heritage purposes.

The work to demolish the building began on 16 December. In November 2014, the Ministry awarded these plots, which had fallen into disuse, to Domo for €111 million, which acquired them with the aim of constructing a development containing 320 homes, with an average price of €325,000. (…).

Original story: Expansión (by R. Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake