Tag: shareholders

Xeresa Golf Completes a €4.7M Capital Increase

12 December 2018 – Alicante Plaza

The company that owns the Villaitana hotel complex in Benidorm, Xeresa Golf, has completed the capital increase that it launched in August, after emerging from creditor bankruptcy by fulfilling the agreement and acquiring the plot on which the resort was constructed, which was initially occupied on a concession basis. Thus, as reflected in the Official Bulletin of the Mercantile Registry (Borme) of Alicante on Tuesday, the company has subscribed a €4.7 million capital increase (the total amount), and so the resulting subscribed share capital amounts to €9.2 million, more than twice the figure before the operation.

It is not the first capital increase that Xeresa Golf has undertaken in its checkered history. In recent years, the firm founded at the time by the entrepreneurial Cremades family from Gandía, has resorted to “accordion operations” to wipe its debt, and to add or expel shareholders (the firm was created with several representatives of the jet set amongst its minority shareholders), and, on the penultimate occasion, to articulate the entry of its current majority shareholder, the hotel management company HI Partners, which owns 80% of its share capital.

Nevertheless, this new increase has basically been covered by its current shareholders (the hotel company owned 80% and the Cremades held onto 20%), according to sources. In fact, the shareholders of Xeresa Golf had preferential subscription rights, which, according to the same sources, they exercised. HI Partners acquired the majority of the company in 2017 (…) by offsetting the loan that the firm owned by the Cremades family held with Banco Sabadell, which was the owner of the hotel management platform at the time (and which was created specifically to manage the hotel assets that the entity had had to assume).

Just a year ago, the bank sold its hotel division to the US fund Blackstone, which is the ultimate owner of the 17 hotels that comprise the portfolio of HI Partners, including the asset in Benidorm (…).

Owner of the plot

This new capital increase comes shortly after Xeresa Golf has become the owner of the plot on which Hotel Villaitana stands (two four- and five-star hotels and several golf courses) in the PEDUI of Terra Mítica. Xeresa Golf submitted the best offer in the auction for the plots convened by the Consell, although in reality only two bids were made and the other one came from HI Partners. In fact, the capital increase was carried out for a similar amount to the price offered by the hotel owner to acquire the land on which it stands: €4.8 million plus taxes.

Similarly, the company that owns the hotel complex managed by the chain Meliá has overcome another milestone in the last year, that of definitively emerging from the creditor bankruptcy that it entered in 2012 (…).

Original story: Alicante Plaza (by David Martínez)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Firmum to Increase Share Capital by €60M to Buy More Parking Lots

3 December 2018 – Eje Prime

Firmum Capital is stepping on the accelerator to increase its portfolio of parking lots in Spain. The Spanish parking lot manager is on the verge of closing a €60 million capital increase to finance new purchases in the domestic market.

Through the financing round, the company will increase its investment capacity to almost €210 million, and will also open up its capital to new shareholders. The firm undertakes its investments through the company APK Gestión de Aparcamientos.

Firmum was created in 2016 by Cristian Abelló, Bernardino Díaz-Andreu and Fernando Pire, who have generated a portfolio comprising 64 parking lots distributed over a dozen Spanish autonomous regions, according to El Economista.

In total, Firmum owns 27,000 parking spaces in the market, which following the financing round, will be increased with more assets in Spain and Portugal. The current investors in the manager include Banco Sabadell, through Sabadell Asset Management, and Altamar Capital Partners.

Last year, the fund invested €80 million in the purchase of 39 assets, which added 15,676 parking spaces to its portfolio. That investment plan comes at a time when these types of alternative assets are booming.

This segment is attracting interest from many funds and institutional investors, who are willing to pay high prices for parking lots in the centre of provincial capitals, tempted by their long-term returns. In Europe, there are around 305 million public parking spaces and 53,650 private multi-storey parking lots, according to a report compiled by Catella.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Elix VRS Purchases a Building in Barcelona for €4M

3 December 2018 – Eje Prime

Elix Vintage Residencial Socimi is continuing to back Barcelona. The company, led by the businessmen Jaime Lacasa and Jorge Benjumeda, has purchased a building in Barcelona for €4 million, according to a statement filed by the company with the Alternative Investment Market (MAB).

The purchase of the asset, located on Calle Tamarit in the Catalan capital, has been financed in part (42.5%) by own funds and in part (57.5%) by a loan. The loan, granted by CaixaBank, has a duration of five years with a quarterly repayment schedule.

This operation follows the purchase of another residential property that the Socimi carried out at the end of October. On that occasion, Elix VRS acquired a building on Calle Consell de Cent for €4.1 million, according to a report filed by the company with the MAB. Moreover, in August, the firm purchased a portfolio of four assets in the centre of the Catalan capital for €34 million.

The Socimi, controlled primarily by the property developer Elix and the funds KKR and Altamar Capital Partners, has a portfolio containing more than 25 assets located in Madrid and Barcelona. The company’s plans involve purchasing around forty buildings between now and 2021 to subject them to comprehensive renovations and then put the homes up for rent. That rental income will sustain the Socimi, which plans to rotate its portfolio of assets every three years.

Elix VRS made its debut on the stock market in July. The company, which is headquartered in Barcelona, was created with a share capital of €100 million, the majority of which was contributed by KKR and a group of international and domestic investors including Altamar and Deutsche Finance Group. The rest of the shares are owned by Jaime Lacasa and Jorge Benjumeda, the founders of the Socimi.

Original story: Eje Prime (by B. Seijo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Qatari Sovereign Fund Becomes Colonial’s Largest Shareholder

8 November 2018 – Europa Press

Colonial has approved a capital increase at an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting, whereby enabling the Qatari Sovereign Fund to become the Socimi’s largest shareholder since it will see its stake in the company double to 20%.

Qatar is becoming the largest shareholder of the second largest Socimi in Spain, a firm that owns office buildings in Madrid, Barcelona and Paris worth €11 billion, through an agreement reached with Colonial to exchange the shares of its French subsidiary Société Foncière Lyonnaise (SFL).

Specifically, Colonial is going to give Qatar the own shares that it issues during the capital increase and, in exchange, the fund is going to hand over the 22% stake that it holds in SFL.

In this way, Qatar will double its presence in Colonial from its current position of 10% to the aforementioned figure of 20% and will become its largest shareholder. Meanwhile, the real estate firm will increase the controlling stake that it holds in SFL from 59% to 80.74%.

It is an operation worth €718 million, which Colonial is framing in the context of simplifying the group’s shareholder structure and of strengthening its position in SFL and in France, a company and market that it considers to be “strategic”.

The real estate company is tackling this transaction after completing the merger of the Socimi Axiare and at a time when it is immersed in a full growth strategy through investments in purchases and the new build developments.

In the case of Qatar, it is strengthening its position as the largest shareholder of the second largest listed real estate firm in the country, in line with the commitment that many large international funds are making to the Spanish real estate sector. Moreover, it will retain an indirect stake in SFL.

No changes on the board

These shareholder exchanges will not have any impact on the Board of Directors of Colonial, given that the Qatari fund will retain the two seats that it has had on the management board for a while, when it had a larger stake, according to a statement made by the President of the Socimi, Juan José Brugera, after the meeting.

Brugera said that the operation was approved unanimously by all of the shareholders, whereby ruling out any bad feeling on the part of Colonial’s largest shareholder until now, the Mexican group Finaccess, not only for losing its status (as the largest shareholder), but also for seeing its stake diluted from 18% to 16% as a result of the capital increase.

Original story: Europa Press

Translation: Carmel Drake

5 Investors are Interested in Buying Sareb’s Rental Home Socimi Témpore

5 November 2018 – Cope

The bad bank has given interested parties until the middle of this month to submit their offers.

Sareb has received expressions of interest from five investors for the purchase of Témpore, its rental home Socimi, the third largest in the market by number of homes, given that it will have 3,357 homes once the bad bank has transferred it 850 homes in December.

That is according to Témpore’s CEO, Nicolás Saldaña (pictured above, right), who said that the firm has opened its books to those investors, who have until the middle of November to submit their offers.

According to Saldaña, one of those five investors is a firm that already operates in the rental home sector, whilst the others are specialist investment funds.

The eventual sale of Témpore by Sareb will serve as an alternative to the plan that it designed for the Socimi when it launched it at the end of last year, which involves leaping from the MAB to the main stock market “as soon as possible” to whereby exit its capital and “liquidate” the homes on its balance sheet.

Nevertheless, although the Socimi is up for sale, Témpore is going to maintain the condition of an additional liquidation channel for the portfolio of homes from Sareb with which it was constituted.

That is going to be possible given that, although Sareb is not the main shareholder of Témpore, the agreement that the two entities have, whereby the bad bank transfers assets to the Socimi, is going to continue to be valid until it expires in November 2020.

For the time being, once Témpore adds the 850 homes that Sareb is going to transfer to it in December, in what will constitute the first operation under the framework of that agreement, the Socimi will have a stock of 3,357 homes worth around €325 million.

According to its data, these figures make it the third largest rental home firm in the country after Blackstone, which after purchasing Testa, now owns a stock of 24,000 homes, and Azora, with 7,000 homes.

Original story: Cope 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Socimi Vitruvio to Sale its Industrial Assets worth €12.8M

2 November 2018 – La Información

The Socimi Vitruvio, which focuses on the residential market, wants to take a new step on its journey and get rid of its industrial assets. In this way, the Socimi, which has Joaquín López-Chicheri as its CEO, will focus on the residential sector, above all, although without neglecting its commercial assets or offices. On the other hand, it will dispose of the least glamorous part of its real estate portfolio, its logistics warehouses.

This part of its business, worth €12.8 million, according to the company’s own accounts, generates a return of 9.3% – the highest of any of its divisions – and has an occupancy rate of 100%. Despite that, the company’s plans involve forgetting about these types of assets, which they consider to be “residual” and “non-strategic”.

“We have always thought that residential is the safest type of asset”, say sources at the company. On the other hand, they recognise that diversification is due, in large part, to the need to generate higher profits to access dividend payments to shareholders. “Residential has the capacity to generate a lower recurring return, unless you assume one more level of risk”, said the CEO of the firm.

Where are this Socimi’s industrial assets located? The firm led by López-Chicheri owns properties of an industrial nature in Mercamadrid and Yunquera de Henares, a town close to Guadalajara.

The first of them, located in the aforementioned distribution platform, has a market value of €2.82 million, which represents a price of €526/m2. The second, on an industrial estate in the town of Yunquera de Henares, Guadalajara has a market value of €5.2 million. That asset has a surface area of 13,587 m2 and a price of €381/m2.

The Socimi that now wants to divest the logistics component of its assets has a “patrimonialist” vision, according to its CEO. In this way, the firm has diversified its assets to reduce risks. “The portfolios that traditional patrimonialist firms have are normally distributed between residential, well-located commercial premises and offices. And that is what Vitruvio has”, said the executive.

This real estate investment company was constituted in June 2014, under the Socimi tax regime. Since then, it has undergone several capital increases – raising almost €30 million in total – to acquire assets and position itself ahead of its stock market debut.

The bell was rung in July 2016, two years after its creation, at a price of €12.63 per share and with 126 shareholders. Nowadays, Vitruvio’s shares are listed on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB) through the fixing system – with two daily auctions – at a price of €13.70 per share.

In January of that same year, the company carried out its largest capital increase to date raising €11.5 million. Thanks to that, the number of assets increased along with their value to exceed €100 million.

Original story: La Información (by Lucía Gómez)

Translation: Carmel Drake

CV Grupo Debuts First Spanish Socimi on Euronext

17 September 2018 – Expansión

Salvador Vila Arcos and the Copoví Ridaura brothers have created Logis Confort, which owns seven industrial buildings in Valencia and Madrid, and they have opted to debut the entity on a secondary French market in light of the more onerous demands of the MAB.

One of the main developers of industrial warehouses in Valencia, CV Grupo, has converted its firm Logic Confort into the first Spanish Socimi to list on the Euronext Access market in Paris. The firm has opted for that secondary French market due to its less onerous requirements and its greater flexibility with respect to the Spanish Alternative Investment Market (MAB).

Logis Confort groups together seven industrial properties that the company leases, mainly in Valencia plus one in Madrid. The assets are worth €15 million. The firm started to trade in July with a benchmark price for its shares of €2.20, which represents a company valuation of €11 million. Although its corporate headquarters are located in Madrid, its three shareholders are from Valencia. The main shareholder is Salvador Vila Arcos, who owns 50% of the firm and is the owner of several firms that operate under the CV Grupo brand, with which it has developed and constructed some of the Ford suppliers’ park in Almussafes. His partners are two builders from that town, Edelmiro and José Manuel Copoví Ridaura, each of whom own 25%.

According to sources at the firm, the decision to opt for the Euronext exchange over the MAB fundamentally due to the conditions regarding the number of shareholders, the diffusion of the shareholding and of the free-floating shares – the percentage of total share capital trading freely on the stock market – demanded by the Spanish market and which did not fit with the company’s plans. Last year, the MAB tightened up its requirements in light of the Socimi boom to take advantage of tax benefits.

In fact, Logis Confort, which has relied on Armanext as an advisor, does not initially expect to open its share capital up to investors in general. Its strategy is to expand the Socimi’s capital by contributing more assets, some of which involve other partners who may join the shareholding of the company.

With this formula, the group also wants to take advantage of the creation of Logis Confort to reorganised its corporate structure and to be able to have an instrument for future operations and alliances.

As Expansión published, CV Grupo participates in companies with the investment firm Atitlán for the management of industrial warehouses.

Original story: Expansión (by A. C. A.)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Blackstone Buys 50% of Testa from Merlin, Santander & BBVA

17 September 2018 – Eje Prime

Blackstone is strengthening its commitment to Spanish property. The US fund, which has been very active in the domestic real estate market in recent years, has just completed the purchase of 50.01% of Testa from Merlin, Santander and BBVA, according to a statement issued by the parties.

Testa is the largest manager of rental homes in Spain, with 10,615 real estate assets in its portfolio and a turnover of €85 million in annualised gross income. Most of the shares of the Socimi, which has been listed on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB) since July, will now be owned by Tropic Real Estate Holding, a company managed by Blackstone.

One of the largest shareholders of the company, the real estate firm Merlin, has pocketed €321 million from this operation, which means valuing the own funds of Spain’s largest Socimi at €1.895 billion. With the funds obtained, the company led by Ismael Clemente plans to reduce its debt, within the framework of the company’s objectives.

Following Merlin’s exit from the company, Acciona Inmobiliaria, the real estate investment arm of the energy firm, has been left as the main domestic shareholder of the listed company.

Testa’s homes are primarily located in Madrid, although the firm also has a presence in other major cities in the country such as Barcelona, San Sebastián, Valencia, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Valencia and Palma, amongst others.

Testa, created in 2001 by the construction company Sacyr, invested €228 million in March in the purchase of 4,500 homes from the BuildingCenter, the real estate arm of CaixaBank. Moreover, following its incorporation onto the MAB, one of its largest shareholders, Acciona Inmobiliaria studied the possibility of becoming a reference shareholder of the Socimi.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Valladolid’s Town Hall Finalises Operation to Group Together its Offices in Plaza San Pablo

18 August 2018 – El Norte de Castilla

Valladolid’s Town Hall is finalising an operation to hand over plots of land to the Ministry of Justice and group together its headquarters in San Pablo.

The buyer is a listed company and, before closing an agreement with the Town Hall, needs to obtain approval from its shareholders and from Spain’s National Securities and Exchange Commission. But the operation, which is described as “good news” for the city and the municipal coffers, is in a very advanced stage. The Town Hall is finalising the drafting of the agreement with an important company, whose name has not been disclosed, which will make it possible for the El Salvador school plot to be placed at the disposal of the Ministry of Justice so that all of the headquarters located across the city can be grouped together in the San Pablo area.

The deal will work as follows. The property development firm will acquire the plots from the owner of the former education centre, pay off a significant debt that its owners have contracted with Sareb – which is estimated to amount to €10 million – and grant the El Salvador plot to the Town Hall. In exchange, the Town Hall ‘will pay’ this plot with buildability. Specifically, almost 6,000 m2 on another “very central” plot, whose location has not been revealed for the time being.

Without legal problems

According to the local Administration, the solution will resolve all of the problems and delays that an expropriation process could involve and will include the withdrawal of legal appeals that the owner company had filed against the municipal plans.

Moreover, the Town Hall will maintain the buildability of the plots next to the Zambrana school, in the Delicias neighbourhood – plots that were going to be handed over to the owners of the school as compensation for El Salvador (…).

The plan, as announced by the mayor last week, is to sign the agreement with the buyer during the month of September (…).

Original: El Norte de Castilla (by J. Asua)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Podemos & the Tax Authorities Negotiate a Stricter Fiscal Framework for Socimis

11 September 2018 – Expansión

Podemos and the Government are studying measures to put a stop to the “rental bubble in Spain’s largest cities”, which Pablo Iglesias argues is being caused by the tax advantages being afforded to the Socimis.

The Tax Authorities and Podemos are negotiating a stricter fiscal framework for Socimis. That is according to sources at the negotiations, and to an announcement made by the leader of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias (pictured above, right), after his meeting with the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez (pictured above, left), on Thursday.

Iglesias spoke of an “understanding” on this point and of advances in the negotiations. Although the fiscal framework of these real estate investment companies has always been under Podemos’s spotlight, it did not mention it in the document that it sent to the Tax Authorities in August detailing its requests, in exchange for its support of the Budgets. But, that was not a question of “limited demands”, according to sources at Podemos, who are now negotiating measures with the Executive to put a stop to the “rental bubble in Spain’s largest cities”. And, in Podemos’s opinion, the beneficial legislation afforded to Socimis explains this bubble, and it needs to be addressed urgently. Iglesias will spend tomorrow questioning Sánchez in the control session of the Government in Congress regarding the “measures that the Executive plans to adopt to put an end to the rental housing bubble”.

“We need to discourage the promotion of these types of companies, which foster the bubble model, undermine the public coffers and represent an affront to competition. We think that the special framework for Socimis, whose main feature consists of a Corporation Tax rate of 0%, needs to be reversed”, said Podemos recently in a document (…).

In this latest document, Podemos therefor, therefore, to put an end to this zero tax rate for Socimis, compared with the nominal tax rate of 25% (…). The negotiations with the Tax Authorities are based on the premise that Podemos wants to bring the tax rates for Socimis in line with those applicable to other companies. However, it does not rule out that the measures agreed will be aimed at having more control over their tax framework.

Zapatero’s Government created Socimis in 2009 in an attempt to revitalise the real estate market, inspired by the REITs (Real Estate Investment Trust) from the Anglo-Saxon world. They enjoy a very beneficial tax framework. Their Corporation Tax rate is 0%, provided they fulfil certain requirements: the minimum share capital must amount to at least €5 million (…); the funds must be invested in properties; a minimum of 80% of the profits obtained from rental must be distributed as dividends; and at least 80% of the value of the assets in urban buildings must be leased for at least three years.

Unlike the Sicavs, there is no requirement for Socimis to have a minimum number of shareholders, but their shares must be admitted for trading on a regulated market (…).

Following the economic recovery and the boom in the real estate market since 2013, the Socimis are enjoying a golden period (….).

Original story: Expansión (by Mercedes Serraller)

Translation: Carmel Drake