Tag: sabadell

Scope: Spain’s Most Exposed Banks are set to Boost their Toxic Assets Sales

25 October 2018 – Expansión

The large real estate sale operations formalised during the last year by Santander, BBVA, CaixaBank and Sabadell, amongst other entities, have allowed the Spanish banking sector to reduce its total volume of problematic assets (NPLs) by approximately 60% from the peak of €200 billion reached in December 2013, to €82 billion recorded at the end of the first half of this year.

This massive clean up of a large part of the banks’ balance sheets has caused analysts at the credit rating agency Scope to consider the current ratios of toxic assets as “manageable and more of a legacy left over from the crisis than a real concern”. That is according to the authors of a recent report which evaluates the improvement recorded in the quality of assets in the Spanish banking system as a result of property sale operations such as those of Santander with Blackstone (€30 billion), BBVA and Sabadell with Cerberus (€13 billion and €9.1 billion, respectively) and CaixaBank with Lone Star (€12.8 billion).

Despite the effort carried out by a large part of the sector, those responsible for analysing the Spanish banks at Scope assume that those banks with comparatively worse levels of property exposure will accelerate their cleanups over the coming quarters, either by carrying out large sales or by placing several smaller portfolios.

Sources at Scope expect to see more large operations involving the sale of problem assets over the coming months, given that the large funds are now operating full steam ahead in the real estate segment, and “they are trying to gain scale and capitalise on their recently purchased platforms”, explains the report. Such is the case, for example, of Lone Star, which acquired Servihabitat from CaixaBank, and whichever fund ends up buying Solvia from Sabadell.

Financial sources agree that the cycle of real estate operations in Spain still has several operations in the pipeline, and they point to entities such as Bankia and Cajamar, which have relatively higher levels of problem assets than the sector, as candidates for starring in those transactions. Specifically, Scope points to Cajamar in its report, given that it is the only entity with a ratio of non-performing assets of more than 10%, according to data from the ratings agency.

The analysts at Scope also assume that Bankia will carry out movements to sell a substantial part of its toxic exposure. One of the nationalised entity’s strategic objectives is to accelerate the clean up of its balance sheet over the coming quarters. Moreover, the analysts anticipate that the global NPL ratio will continue to reduce quickly given that the other banks “are already in the process of completing the sale of several foreclosed asset portfolios”, explains the firm in its report.

The funds seek NPLs in other latitudes

Although the activity of buying credit portfolios is still intense in Spain, the funds specialising in these types of assets are setting their sights on other countries in search of opportunities to find value.

Sources in the sector explain that a large number of the opportunistic and real estate funds that have been undertaking operations in Spain are trying to close new transactions in Italy, Portugal, Greece and Cyprus (…).

Original story: Expansión (by Nicolás M. Sarriés)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Gestilar Buys 15,000 m2 of Residential Land in Barcelona

24 October 2018 – Eje Prime

Gestilar is strengthening its commitment to Cataluña. The Spanish property developer has purchased several buildable plots of land in Badalona (Barcelona) measuring 15,644 m2 in total on which to build two new developments containing 130 homes, according to a statement issued by the company.

The project is located on Illa 3 de Marina Badalona and will be developed in two phases: a first, in which 92 homes will be built, and a second, with 38 units. The first development will be called Islas Sagres and will comprise two-, three- and four-bedroom homes. The real estate company plans to hand over the homes in 2021.

Gestilar’s commitment to Cataluña is expanding with this new development in Barcelona’s metropolitan area, the company’s fourth project in the autonomous region. “Cataluña is a market in continuous flux when it comes to real estate assets and there is still a lot of pent-up demand”, said the Director-General of Gestilar, Marta García-Valcárcel.

Before the end of this year, the property developer is going to hand over 150 new homes in Girona and Barcelona. In recent months, the property developer has also acquired new buildable plots in the Barcelona town of Sabadell, as well as in Madrid and Vigo.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Sabadell Could Receive up to €400M for Solvia

24 October 2018 – Expansión

Change of tack for Sabadell. The bank has put Solvia up for sale, its real estate subsidiary, which it owns in its entirety, to try to earn €400 million, according to sources familiar with the process. Sabadell has awarded the mandate to sound out offers to Alantra, although other investment banks may also be advising the entity. Sources at the bank preferred not to comment in this regard.

Sabadell has activated the sale of Solvia three months after cleaning up its balance sheet to remove €11.5 billion in toxic assets. At that time, it decided to go against the trend in the sector and not divest its real estate platform, taking advantage of the sale of the portfolios.

Sources at the entity defend that the real estate platform holds significant latent value.

Other sources in the sector estimate that a reasonable price that the bank could obtain for divesting this asset is €200 million. That figure is equivalent to four times its EBITDA, a reference that the market has used for the sale of the property management arms of Servihabitat (CaixaBank) and Aliseda (Popular).

Sabadell’s strategy of separating the sale of the two portfolios from that of Solvia is to maximise revenues.

As is typical in these types of transactions, the final price will depend on whether the management of future toxic loans, known in the financial jargon as NPLs, are included in the sale.

Appetite

Alantra has already received interest from three opportunistic funds. One of the best positioned is Cerberus, according to various financial sources. In fact, the US fund acquired two large portfolios of foreclosed properties (Challenger and Coliseum) from Sabadell in the summer, with a combined gross value of €9.1 billion.

The US fund’s Spanish platform, Haya Real Estate, could gain muscle with the operation to accelerate its plans to debut on the stock market. And it could also benefit from important synergies, given that it already manages almost €40 billion in assets.

Sources at the sector also point to Intrum, the new brand that the Norwegian fund Lindorff is operating under, following its merger with the Swedish firm Intrum Justitia, and a new international player that wants to enter the European market with this operation, whose name has not been revealed.

In theory, the deadline for firm bids for Solvia, through binding offers, will close this month. Nevertheless, Sabadell is already holding very advanced negotiations with a single fund to sign the sale of Solvia, according to sources in the know. Sabadell has been weighing up the sale of its real estate platform for months. Jaime Guardiola, CEO of the bank, admitted at the beginning of the year that it was considering putting it on the market in light of the appetite from the funds for real estate and these platforms.

Solvia manages 148,000 assets, with a value of more than €30 billion. Since 2015, the company has focused on the marketing of new build developments and has put more than 10,000 homes on the market. It has 36 franchises and 18 own centres, which together make 54 offices located all over Spain (…).

Original story: Expansión (by R. Sampedro & S. Saborit)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Núñez i Navarro Invests €25M in Site of Former Metalarte Factory to Build 80 Homes

19 October 2018 – Eje Prime

Núñez i Navarro has not forgotten about its land on the site of the former Metalarte factory. The property developer chaired by Josep Lluís Núñez is going to invest €25 million in the construction of a residential development in the Barcelona municipality of Sant Joan Despí.

The company is planning to build eighty homes, in total, with parking spaces and storerooms in the same property, which will be constructed between this autumn and 2021. 61 of the homes in the development will be private, whilst eleven will be social housing units and seven will be granted to the Town Hall of Sant Joan Despí by the Catalan company.

Núñez i Navarro acquired the former Metalarte factory in 2001. Almost twenty years later, the property developer is recovering the land to build its second residential project in the Barcelonan municipality. The company has just carried out a comprehensive renovation of the farmhouse where the Trias de Bes family used to spend its summer holidays to convert it into a school.

At the moment, the Núñez i Navarro group has twenty-three projects underway, corresponding to an investment of €250 million in Cataluña. Barcelona, Sabadell, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat and Sant Joan Despí are the cities chosen by this unlisted property developer to build 947 homes, two hotels, a co-working centre and 69 commercial premises or offices.

In fact, the company is one of the firms in the sector that has best overcome the crisis, with its low debt policy. Proof of that is the investment effort that it has undertaken in the Catalan region over the last five years, where it has disbursed almost €400 million.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Solvia: Sabadell Puts its Real Estate Subsidiary Up For Sale

17 October 2018 – El País

Sabadell is going to listen to offers from several real estate vulture funds that are interested in acquiring its subsidiary Solvia, the manager of its properties. The entity, which declined to comment, has now entrusted the sales process to an investment bank. In the summer, Jaime Guardiola, CEO of Sabadell, justified holding onto Solvia due to “the great contribution it makes to the bank”, but now he is taking a step towards selling it. Sources in the sector indicate that Sabadell wants to strengthen itself and take advantage of the good climate still being enjoyed in the real estate market.

The banks are getting rid of properties before the booming market deflates. They are selling not only portfolios, but also the companies that specialise in the management of those real estate assets, known in the sector as servicers. Until now, it was typical for the banks to include their servicers in the package of asset sales: that is what CaixaBank did with Servihabitat and BBVA with Anida.

But, Sabadell wanted to get more mileage out of its subsidiary and so decided not to sell Solvia when it divested around €12.2 billion of its properties to Axactor, Cerberus, Deutsche Bank and Carval. Nevertheless, Sabadell has now taken the definitive step and is open to offers from the interested vulture funds. According to sources in the market, the interested parties include Cerberus and Oaktree.

148,000 assets under management

Based on data as at May 2018, Solvia is one of the leaders in the real estate services market in Spain, with a portfolio of 148,000 units in assets under management, whose value exceeds €31 billion, according to the entity. In a report from Goldman Sachs, Sabadell indicates that Solvia’s annual profit amounts to €40 million.

The company has extensive experience in the marketing of new build developments, given that it has placed more than 10,000 homes in new developments on the market since 2015. At the moment, Solvia has 55 developments up for sale. In terms of rental, as of October, the firm was managing 32,000 assets, of which 74% belong to Sabadell. Solvia also works with other clients, including Sareb.

The report from Goldman Sachs noted that Sabadell could sell Solvia as a way of raising its capital ratios, with little detriment to its income statement.

Market sources agree with these arguments to explain the step taken by Sabadell. On the one hand, as the European Central Bank has indicated, entities must accelerate the sale of all businesses relating to the real estate sector. The banks are aware that times of lower economic growth will come and understand the importance of taking advantage of the appetite that the large international funds still have for Spanish property.

On the other hand, the sale of Solvia will also result in cost savings, a reduction in the workforce and, above all, lower capital consumption. In the last quarter, between March and June, Sabadell’s capital ratio decreased by one point, from 12% to 11% for its CET 1 fully loaded capital ratio (the highest quality indicator). The limit on the basis of which the ECB applies severe measures is 10.5%.

This decrease was due to the problems that Sabadell has been facing with its British subsidiary TSB, which was left without a service for weeks. Between March and June, the bank lost €138 million in provisions against real estate portfolios and the problems at TSB.

Original story: El País (by Íñigo de Barrón)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Cerberus & Blackstone Compete to become Largest RE Firm in Spain

16 October 2018 – Expansión

The US funds Cerberus and Blackstone are battling it out for first place on the podium in the Spanish real estate sector. Cerberus, which has just completed the purchase of 80% of BBVA’s real estate business, has invested more than €10 billion in real estate transactions in the country over the last year. Specifically, Cerberus will now control 80% of Divarian Propiedad, the company to which BBVA has transferred its real estate business and in which the bank will retain the remaining 20%. The groups have not disclosed the price of the transaction or the value of the assets included in Divarian, although the bank did indicate at the time that its intention was to transfer assets with a gross accounting value of approximately €13 billion at an estimated price of around €4 billion.

Anida’s workforce

Divarian, which is going to be managed by Cerberus, will incorporate the specialist staff from BBVA’s former real estate platform, Anida, comprising 400 professionals, into its team.

In addition to this operation, known as Project Marina, Cerberus reached an agreement with Santander in the middle of September to purchase a portfolio of residential properties for around €1.535 billion comprising 35,700 properties, including parking spaces and storerooms. This transaction followed Project Jaipur – a portfolio of property developer loans also acquired from BBVA -; the portfolios Challenger and Coliseum, with a combined gross value of around €9.1 billion, acquired from Sabadell; and Ágora, the portfolio that Cerberus purchased from CaixaBank.

In addition to the purchase of real estate portfolios, Cerberus is the owner of: Haya Real Estate, the largest independent Spanish servicer with €40 billion in assets under management; the property developer Inmoglacier; the online real estate agency between individuals Housell; and Gescobro, the debt recovery company.

The fund, which has not specified how much it has invested since it arrived in the country, has become, together with Blackstone, one of the most active players in the purchase of doubtful debt portfolios (NPLs) and foreclosed assets (REO) with real estate collateral, and has closed more than 30 transactions in Spain over the last five years, even before the recovery of the sector.

Testa

Meanwhile, Blackstone has acquired around €20 billion in property since 2012, to which the Socimi specialising in residential rental assets, Testa, must be added, given that the US fund now controls 70% of that firm’s share capital. The fund marked a milestone last year when it purchased 51% of Banco Popular’s real estate business from Santander, with a book value of around €10.3 billion. To group together the assets, Blackstone and Santander created Project Quasar Investment, a company that includes Aliseda.

The fund is also the largest owner of hotels in Spain through HI Partners and Hispania, one of the leaders in the logistics and office ownership market in Spain.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Reale Seguros Reorganises its Properties to Obtain Higher Returns

15 October 2018 – Expansión

Reale Seguros is reorganising its real estate investments with the aim of achieving higher returns.

The insurance company, the Spanish subsidiary of the Italian firm Reale, has removed from its balance sheet properties with a combined market value of €67 million, which it has transferred to Igarsa, a real estate company belonging to the Reale group, under the formula of a capital increase.

The properties are not linked through provisions to the activity of Reale Seguros. The main asset is located on Vía Augusta in Barcelona and is occupied by Deutsche Bank as the tenant. The package also includes smaller offices, which Reale Seguros could divest.

The assets contributed by the insurance company to Igarsa will join those already owned by that company, with a market value of €80 million, says José Ramón López, Director General of Resources and Media at Reale Seguros. Its main assets are two properties located on Paseo de la Castellana and Paseo de Recoletos in Madrid, which are leased to Condé Nast, the editor of Vogue, and Garrigues, respectively.

The relocation of the real estate assets of Reale Seguros is the starting point for starting to apply an active management of these properties with purchases and sales depending on the opportunities in the market.

The divestments are expected to focus on the smaller offices and in terms of acquisitions, “we are looking at alternatives, although we do not have anything concrete on the table at the moment”, said López.

To move forward with this project, the insurance firm has signed an agreement with the real estate arm of the group in Italy, which has assets under management amounting to €1.5 billion and “which will help us to undertake an industrial management of our portfolio, with the possibility of selling assets to funds as well as looking for opportunities”, said the director of Reale Seguros.

Igarsa, which is headquartered in Madrid, is controlled (95%) by the Italian firm Mutua Reale, whilst the Spanish firm Reale Seguros owns the remaining 5% stake.

The properties linked to the commitments of Reale Seguros remain on the company’s balance sheet. They include its headquarters in Madrid, located on Calle Príncipe de Vergara, a building that was purchased from Sabadell.

Reale recorded premiums of €456 million during the first half of 2018, up by 2.5% compared to the same period in 2017.

Original story: Expansión (by E. del Pozo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Project Newton: Bankia Puts €450M Toxic Asset Portfolio Up for Sale

21 September 2018 – Voz Pópuli

The insatiable appetite of the opportunistic funds for Spanish property is never ending and the banks are taking advantage to reduce their exposure to real estate assets and whereby clean up their balance sheets. The latest to come to the market is Bankia, which has put a €450 million portfolio up for sale comprising primarily property developer loans, although Project Newton, as the operation has been baptised, also includes a small proportion of foreclosed assets, according to financial sources consulted by Vozpópuli.

Newton’s sale is expected to be completed this year and will be followed by two other asset portfolios that the bank plans to sell soon, according to reports from Bloomberg. The operations disclosed by the US agency include a €1,500M portfolio comprising unpaid mortgages and a €2,000M portfolio comprising foreclosed assets.

At the end of the first half of the year, the entity chaired by José Ignacio Goirigolzarri held €15.2 billion in toxic assets, after reducing its balance by €1.7 billion between the months of January and June.

Strategic plan

With the sale of the three aforementioned portfolios before the end of the year, the bank would more than exceed its annual objective in terms of asset sales, which amounts to €2.9 billion per year for the next three years. In fact, if Bankia divests all three portfolios, its real estate exposure would decrease to €11.25 billion, and so it would follow in the footsteps of the other entities that have accelerated the sale of these types of assets in the last year.

The most recent example is Santander, which on Wednesday closed the sale to Cerberus of a portfolio of properties worth around €2.79 billion with a 45% discount. The initial perimeter of the operation was €5.1 billion, but in the end, the commercial premises and land that had been included in Project Apple were left out of the final portfolio.

The entity already transferred Popular’s property last year to a joint venture with Blackstone, and so its real estate exposure will decrease to around €7.3 billion once the Apple sale is completed.

Meanwhile, BBVA, which also sold €13 billion in foreclosed assets to Cerberus, has entrusted the sale of €2.5 billion in problem loans to Alantra. That operation will reduce the real estate exposure of the bank chaired by Francisco González to almost zero.

Moreover, Sabadell and CaixaBank have also completed significant operations in recent months. The former sold €9.1 billion in foreclosed assets to Cerberus, whilst the latter divested almost all of its real estate business: €12.8 billion in real estate assets, which were acquired by Lone Star.

In this way, the banks are complying with the guidelines set out by the European Central Bank (ECB) and are generating returns from their businesses in Spain, which have been weighing them down since the economic crisis.

Original story: Voz Pópuli (by Pepe Bravo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Blackstone Crowns its Position as the Largest Property Owner in Spain

18 September 2018 – Cinco Días

Blackstone likes Spain. And specifically, the Spanish real estate market. In recent years, the fund manager has made several large purchases linked to property in the country, displaying its enormous financial capacity to handle operations of any size.

In fact, the fund has now become the largest real estate owner in Spain, where it owns assets worth more than €20 billion, according to the figure compiled by Europa Press, placing it well ahead of the largest Socimis, such as Merlin (€11.785 billion) and Colonial (€11.19 billion).

The fund quickly saw an opportunity with the Testa operation, given that some of the shareholders wanted to exit the company, such as the clear case of Merlin, and the willingness of Santander and BBVA to sell.

The acquisition of 50.01% of Testa Residencial from Merlin, BBVA and Santander for €948 million – an operation that is still open to the other shareholders – followed the very recent purchase of the Socimi Hispania, a transaction worth more than €1.9 billion. Initially, Blackstone agreed to acquire the 16% stake owned by the investor George Soros, and then it launched a takeover bid for the rest of the company. In that case, it acquired 46 hotels, which were added to the 15 it had already acquired from Sabadell and whereby the largest owner of rooms in Spain was born.

In July, Blackstone acquired a logistics portfolio from the Socimi Lar España for €120 million. And recently, it was revealed that Blackstone and Centerbridge had teamed up to submit an offer for Santander’s headquarters in Boadilla del Monte (Madrid) amounting to €3 billion, in a bid that ended at midnight yesterday.

In Spain, Blackstone’s largest operation was undoubtedly the purchase from Santander of 51% of Popular’s real estate business for €5 billion. But that was not its only bank-related deal. It also acquired the portfolio linked to the property of the now extinct entity CatalunyaCaixa. The fund created the company Anticipa Real Estate to manage those toxic assets and it has been putting some of those foreclosed homes up for rent through its various Socimis: Albirana and Torbel (flats acquired from Sabadell), which are both listed on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB).

Moreover, one of Blackstone’s first operations was also one of the most contested politically by the leftist groups, when in 2014, it acquired 1,800 social housing properties from the Town Hall of Madrid for around €130 million – those homes currently form part of the portfolio owned by the Socimi Fidere.

Blackstone entered the property market in Spain in 2014 on the hunt for bargains following the crisis, firstly focusing on bank portfolios. But the recent acquisitions of Hispania and Testa take the US giant in another direction. There is enormous liquidity in the market, which has given a great investment capacity to these funds. Now, it is sounding out opportunities in which to invest in through its funds in real estate as an alternative to public debt with higher returns.

This New York-based firm, which is led by Stephen Schwarzman (pictured above) as its President and CEO, is the largest manager of real estate funds in the world, with $19.4 billion in assets under management, according to its results for the first half of the year.

Original story: Cinco Días

Translation: Carmel Drake

Cerberus to Buy €5M Portfolio from Santander whilst BdE Reviews its Deal with Sabadell

19 September 2018 – El Confidencial

Banco Santander has chosen a buyer for the last portfolio of toxic assets that it still has on its balance sheet. The chosen entity is Cerberus, the opportunistic fund with which the bank chaired by Ana Botín has been holding exclusive negotiations for the sale of the so-called Apple portfolio, which has a nominal value of €5.1 billion, according to confirmation from sources close to the operation. If the deal is closed, the US entity will be the owner of a large part of the real estate business of Santander, BBVA and Banco Sabadell.

The final agreement depends exclusively on locking down the price that Cerberus is offering and that Santander hopes to obtain. The operation could be closed for a price of between €2.8 billion and €3.2 billion, according to the same sources. Banco Santander declined to make any official comment about this information, just like Cerberus. Debtwire, the specialist medium for professionals in financial markets revealed the name of the US fund as the main candidate to acquire this portfolio on 3 September.

If the exclusive talks prove fruitful, Cerberus will fight off competition from Apollo, Lone Star and Blackstone, the other three vulture funds that have also bid for this portfolio of homes, premises and land that Santander foreclosed in exchange for the non-payment of loans by its clients. In theory, the natural winner of the auction was going to be Apollo, which reached an agreement in principle with the Cantabrian bank at the beginning of August for around €2.9 billion.

Nevertheless, that deal fell apart in the middle of last month, to the anger of the fund led at that time by Andrés Rubio, President of Altamira, the real estate company owned jointly by Apollo and Santander since 2013. Rubio left Apollo in the middle of the transaction, which further weakened that firm’s chances of becoming Santander’s natural partner.

With this operation, Spain’s banks will complete the transfer of the majority of the risk linked to the property sector that they still have left over following the financial crisis. In fact, Santander already sold half of the toxic portfolio that it inherited from Popular last summer 2017 – €30 billion – to Blackstone for around €5 billion. Afterwards, BBVA placed almost €13 billion with Cerberus, whilst Lone Star acquired a portfolio worth €6.7 billion from CaixaBank along with its real estate arm Servihabitat.

The most recent high profile transaction announced was the purchase by Cerberus of €9 million of doubtful assets from Sabadell. Nevertheless, that operation is now being reviewed by the Ministry of the Economy given that the Deposit Guarantee Fund is going to have to recognise losses of around €3 billion as a result. That money will go against the State’s own income statement, given that what the Catalan bank, headquartered in Madrid, has sold to the US fund is the former Caja de Ahorros del Mediterráneo (CAM) portfolio, for which it received an asset protection scheme (EPA) (…).

Original story: El Confidencial (by Agustín Marco)

Translation: Carmel Drake