7 May 2019 – Eje Prime
The company Byblos Costa del Sol, in which Ayco holds a 90% stake, has sold the Hotel Byblos Andaluz complex, located in the municipal district of Mijas (Málaga) to an unknown buyer for an undisclosed sum.
The complex includes the hotel building itself, plus a spa and a building housing sports facilities.
Original story: Eje Prime
Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake
26 November 2018 – Diario Sur
It is one of Marbella’s historical tourism buildings, it has been closed since 2013, and for years the most famous of the famous passed through its doors. It is the Incosol. Now, five years after it definitively closed its doors when its last owners filed for creditor bankruptcy, something is starting to move in the great establishment, located to the East of the town and surrounded by gardens and unbeatable views.
According to information obtained by this newspaper, Hotel Value Added Primera, linked to the subsidiary that the Sabadell Group used to acquire the building in 2017, is studying the feasibility of refloating the property as a hotel. For that, it has made contact with the local Administration to consider, in the first instance, the possibilities that the plans would have from an urban planning point of view. In theory, the plans involve a hotel project without the healthcare features that the iconic Incosol used to offer.
Although no specific plans have been presented to the Town Hall yet, the Urban Planning department has started to evaluate the investors’ proposals. From the outset, the exclusive hotel use would require a modification of the elements of the General Urban Plan (PGOU) in force, that of 1986. For the time being, the case is being studied technically.
The sources consulted by this newspaper underline that the urban development plan reflects that this land “would not form part of the municipality’s healthcare model”, which would open the door to the proposed change. In any case, and with the aim of understanding the feasibility of the idea presented to the Municipal Administration, the investors are not taking any risks and have resorted to those who best know the urban development plan in force, namely, the team that drafted the PGOU of 1986.
Since the hotel’s closure in 2012, and after many incarnations in the courts, last year, it was the Sabadell Group, through its real estate subsidiary, who took ownership of the property and the brand. Just a few weeks ago, the doors of the old hotel were opened again to clear the facilities of all of the furniture and furnishings that had been left intact since its closure and which have now been donated to Cáritas (…).
The legendary spa of the jet set of the 1970s and 1980s in Marbella (through whose doors passed Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Sean Connery, Rainiero of Mónaco and Camilo José Cela, amongst others) closed in 2013, on one of the saddest days in its history, since it opened its doors in 1973. The failure led to a creditors bankruptcy (…). And after much to-ing and fro-ing, in the end, one of its creditors, Sabadell, acquired the establishment a year ago.
If the plans of the investor group interested in recovering the property – which are still in a very early phase – come to fruition, Marbella could include the mythical Incosol in its list of new luxury establishments after the upcoming arrival of the prestigious Four Seasons, the arrival of W Marbella and the re-opening of the former Don Miguel establishment, thus confirming the growing interest in investing in the city, especially to create new tourist infrastructure.
Original story: Diario Sur (by Mónica Pérez)
Translation: Carmel Drake
2 November 2018 – Expansión
Canalejas (€14,500/m2)
Canalejas is undoubtedly one of the most anticipated major luxury mega-projects. Owned by OHL and Mohari Limited, the company owned by the Israeli businessman Mark Scheinberg, the central corner surrounded by Calles Alcalá, Sevilla and Carrer de San Jerónima, now known as Project Canalejas, is going to be home to the first Four Seasons hotel in Spain, with 200 rooms, as well as 22 luxury apartments costing €14,500/m2 on average. For the project, 7 historical buildings have been joined together, which used to house the headquarters of some of the most important banking institutions in the country, and in which €300 million have been invested. Of the 22 properties available, 16 have already been sold, including a penthouse for €10 million.
Lagasca 99 (€11,800/m2)
But the record for an apartment with these characteristics in the centre of Madrid is still held by the duplex that was sold on Lagasca 99 at the end of 2016. It is a penthouse duplex spanning 703 m2, with a terrace and private swimming pool, and two parking spaces, which was sold for €14 million. That building, which is currently being promoted by Grupo Lar, after suffering several ups and downs in its development history, has become one of the most exclusive buildings in Madrid, with 44 new homes in total, measuring between 300 m2 and 700 m2 each, and of which 90% have now been sold.
General Castaños 2 (€20,000/m2).
Meanwhile, the property developer Mabel Real Estate has undertaken a stunning renovation of the property at c/General Castaños, 2. Although the 11 homes that the building is going to comprise never actually went on the market (they were offered directly to private investors), the sector calculated that the prices amounted to around €20,000/m2.
José Abascal 48 (€10,000/m2)
Two years ago, the first homes in one of the best fully reformed buildings in the Castellana area, José Abascal 48, started to be handed over. Three exclusive penthouses are still available, including the so-called “duplex penthouse retreat” measuring 462 m2, with terraces spanning 100 m2, 4 parking spaces, a storeroom and an independent service room, which is on the market for €5.87 million.
The home has two main entrances on each of its floors, in such a way that you can access the rooms from the lift if you do not want to use the internal stairs. Moreover, the building has an exceptional entrance hall and an automated parking lot, an events area, a 100 m2 gym and a spa.
Original story: Expansión (by L. Ruiz-Ocaña)
Translation: Carmel Drake
27 December 2017 – Revista Hostel Pro
The 5-star Bal Hotel & Spa has 45 fully equipped rooms (doubles, junior suites and suites), as well as 4 meeting rooms, a restaurant, a piano bar, an extensive spa measuring 450 m2, a gym, 3 padel courts, a car park and a large garden area for events. It is located in Asturias, just 10 minutes from the city centre of Gijón.
The asset has been acquired by Grupo Artiem, which is also going to operate the property itself. Grupo Artiem, originally from Menorca, has a long history on its home island. It has recently started to operate hotels in the urban segment, incorporating the 4-star Artiem Madrid Hotel, with its 83 rooms, into the chain.
José Guillermo Díaz Montañés, CEO of Grupo Artiem, highlights: “The features of the property and its location in Asturias, a region that fits perfectly with our value proposition, make the Bal Hotel Spa Business & Leisure the perfect candidate for incorporating into Artiem Fresh People Hotels, given that our business philosophy is based on well-being, sustainability and people. The facilities and, above all, the team that we are incorporating into the Group will allow us to start to grow in the north of Spain and remain faithful to our philosophy and management model.
Íñigo Cumella, Hotel Broker and the person responsible for the operation, indicated: “this is a unique property in the area, both due to its quality as well as the variety of its services and facilities. On the other hand, its environment and location (just 10 minutes by car from both the beach and Gijón city centre) make it very attractive for leisure guests, as well as for the organisation of corporate meetings and the celebration of events. The completion of this operation once again highlights the significant investor interest in the hotel sector, where luxury assets such as the Bal Hotel & Spa are continuing to generate demand”.
Meanwhile, Inmaculada Ranera, Director General in España and Portugal added: “The month of December is proving to be particularly intense in terms of the closing of operations. We hope that this won’t be the last announcement of its kind before the end of 2017”.
Original story: Revista Hostel Pro
Translation: Carmel Drake
28 September 2017 – Expansión
The real estate group Ibosa and the fund Green Oak are promoting a 23-storey tower containing luxury homes in the north of Madrid. Construction work will start at the site at the beginning of 2018 and will involve an investment of €86 million.
The 77m tall ‘Torre Australis’ will be constructed in the north of the capital, in the so-called Isla de Chamartín area. It will be completed by two lower annexe buildings and in total, will house 208 homes, with between one and four bedrooms, with prices ranging between €227,000 and €805,000.
Ibosa and Green Oak have already started to market the homes, whose owners will enjoy some exclusive services.
Moreover, the complex will have shared facilities such as workspaces, a gym, a sports room with spa, a swimming pool, green areas, sports facilities and a children’s playground.
Original story: Expansión
Translation: Carmel Drake
3 April 2017 – ABC
Edificio España’s foundations are starting to wobble again. The project backed by the Murcian group Baraka, which announced its plan to buy the skyscraper in July last year, has been hit by two serious setbacks in the last few days.
The first, a problem with Wanda’s documentation, put the brakes on the completion of the sale of the building to the company chaired by Trinitario Casanova. Initially, the two parties had agreed to meet at a notary’s office in Madrid to close the operation, after months of comings and goings, but the Chinese group went to the meeting without the deeds or the annual accounts for the financial year 2016, and so the SPA could not be signed.
According to Baraka, that setback will lead to a delay of three months – at least – in the start of the construction work (which is how long it will take the Chinese group to prepare all the necessary paperwork). Nevertheless, the Murcian company has now suffered an even more important setback. According to sources in the financial and real estate sectors, the hotel chain Riu has decided against investing in the project. The Mallorca-based company was going to acquire a 25% stake in the skyscraper, for which Baraka has agreed to pay Wanda €272 million in total.
700-room hotel
In return, Riu was going to manage the five-star hotel, which would occupy the vast majority of the property. The building was going to have 700 rooms, two swimming pools (one outdoor pool on the roof and another indoor pool on the 16th floor), independent conference rooms and themed restaurants. The rest of the building – four floors – was going to be allocated to retail space and according to Casanova, firms such as El Corte Inglés, the French companies Galerías Lafayette and Printemps, amongst other international brands, had already expressed interest in occupying the space.
However, the whole project is now up in the air following the Riu chain’s decision to not contribute the €68 million that it had committed. The decision will force Baraka to look for a new partner if it is to go ahead with its plans. (…).
Sources in the real estate sector do not rule out the possibility that the “failure to sign” last week was a manoeuvre by the Chinese group to try to thwart Baraka’s purchase of Edificio España and win more time to continuing benefitting from the appreciation in value of the skyscraper. (…).
Meanwhile, the questions surrounding the operation and the project itself are the main reasons that led Riu to decide against acquiring 25% of the complex. However, the Mallorca-based company, which does not have any financing problems, has not ruled out continuing as the tenant of the building and paying a rent in exchange for managing the hotel. (…).
Original story: ABC (by Miguel Oliver and Marta R. Domingo)
Translation: Carmel Drake
17 November 2016 – Expansión
HI Partners, the investment and hotel management company owned by Banco Sabadell, has just completed the purchase of Incosol Hotel-Medical Spa in Marbella, one of the icons of luxury on the Costa del Sol. The firm plans to undertake significant investment to remodel and reopen the establishment, which has been closed for several years as a result of the bankruptcy and subsequent liquiditation of the Cádiz based group Jale.
At the end of February, the hotel company led by Alejandro Hernández-Puértolas managed to persuade the commercial judge of Cádiz, which is leading the bankruptcy proceedings, to award HI Partners both the property and the brand, for €20 million. This sum had to be paid to the creditor banks of Incosol, who were Sabadell and Sareb, with a 50% stake each.
Both entities were owed a debt of €30 million and agreed to accept a discount of €10 million.
Nevertheless, the Social Security – which had filed a claim for a debt amounting to €4 million – challenged the decision and the sale was suspended. Now, the judge has dismissed that appeal and has ruled in favour of HI Partners again, which has now managed to close the operation.
According to sources consulted, HI Partners has paid €20 million to Banco Sabadell – its parent company – which had previously acquired the debt that was owed to Sareb to simplify the operation.
HI Partners’ aim now is to launch an ambitious project to revive the Marbella establishment and recover its lost splendour.
Hotel Incosol, which was founded by the 1970s by the Marqués de Villaverde, became the most prestigious medical-hotel complex in Europe during the golden years of Marbella. All kinds of Spanish and international celebrities passed through its doors, until the tourist complex was forced to closed in 2012, as a result of the crisis involving the real estate group Jale, which had acquired Incosol from the Basque García-Egocheaga family in 2007 for €50 million, in a complex financial operation.
Original story: Expansión (by Sergi Saborit)
Translation: Carmel Drake
7 October 2016 – El Economista
The luxury housing market in Madrid is booming, however, the supply of newly built homes is very limited. In fact, José Abascal 48, located in the sought after Madrilenian neighbourhood of Chamberí is marketing itself as the only luxury development in the centre of the capital with an occupancy licence.
Knight Frank and Lucas Fox will be responsible for marketing the 17 homes that comprise this exclusive development. The properties will go on the market priced at between €600,000 and €5 million.
“Four units have already been reserved and we have 65 visits booked for the next few days”, explained Humphrey White, the CEO of Knight Frank in Spain. Given the product shortage and the high quality of these apartments, both consultancy firms expect that these homes will be sold very quickly.
The project, which comes onto the market today, is not what was originally designed for this nine-storey property, which was initially going to contain twice as many homes. “We have adapted the building to the current needs of the market, given that the previous plans were designed during the real estate boom”, explained Frédéric Mangeant, Director of Shaftesbury Asset Management in Spain. The fund is the owner of this property, which was constructed in the 1940s and will now set the bar for prime house prices in this area of Madrid.
The properties in José Abascal, 48 will be sold for between €6,000/sqm and €12,000/sqm following a comprehensive renovation, carried out by the architect firm Touza. It contains apartments ranging from 100 sqm properties with one bedroom to two- to five-bedroom attics and duplexes measuring more than 400 sqm in some cases, as well as some four-bedroom homes.
Behind the protected, neo-classical façade, which represents the bourgeois scenery of the street, the homes contain living rooms measuring between 70 sqm and 100 sqm, with large terraces, bedrooms with en suite bathrooms, dressing rooms and large kitchens with islands.
The common areas represent a particularly important part of this project. The building has a gym and 160 sqm of water, with a spa comprising a jacuzzi, sauna and Turkish bath. The new residents will also have a very large atrium with natural light, thanks to the skylight, and events may be held there on the ground floor.
The luxury of this development is also evident in the garage. With a robotised parking system, managed by the company Integral Park Systems (IPS), the residents of this building will not have to park their own vehicles and may also request their cars from their living rooms, because the homes are all automated.
(…). In this way, the software records the activity of each car and if several users tend to pick up their cars at 8am, the system will move the vehicles so that they are as close as possible to the pick up point at that time.
That is the icing on a cake that has already whetted the appetite of many potential buyers of luxury homes in Madrid.
Original story: El Economista (by Alba Brualla)
Translation: Carmel Drake
4 October 2016 – Cinco Días
The former hotel and real estate empire Marina d’Or has launched an aggressive marketing campaign to raise revenues. It has put apartments up for sale from as little as €130,000 and retail premises from €200,000, with a “guaranteed” return of 7%.
The empire created by Jesús Ger began to crumble at the same time as the real estate bubble burst in Spain. The Holiday City, which was advertised in the City of London as the best place to spend the summer and as a golden retirement destination for British pensioners, is resorting to aggressive marketing techniques once again to increase its sales in the short term.
The key to the campaign, which is featuring in most national newspapers, is the slogan… “Guaranteed returns of 7%”. The small print explains that these investment opportunities relate to fully operational retail premises, with an established client base, as well as beach-front apartments. It specifies that the return of 7% with guaranteed rent will be over “1, 2 3 or more years, depending on the agreement”.
The reality is that the entity selling these assets is the hotel subsidiary of the group, which has not filed for bankruptcy, unlike its property developer associate.
Hoteles Marina d’Or has been selling homes and retail premises from €130,000 and €200,000, respectively, since the summer. In theory, the guaranteed return used to be 4%, but in September, that figure was increased to 7%.
How does it work?
The mechanism is simple. The company undertakes to pay that percentage over the purchase price on the basis of a signed contract, if the owner grants it the right to rent out its property in return. “In reality, they are apartments that the hotels already manage and given their locations, it is almost certain that they will be occupied; and as such, we are able to promise such returns”, said a sales agent from Marina d’Or. A spokesperson for the firm added that the sale of these apartments represents a direct cash injection and allows them to consider using this formula with more homes in the future. (…).
The hotel and real estate complex, which has half a dozen hotels, ranging from three- to five-star categories, is also home to several leisure facilities and a large spa. (…) The company, which guarantees annual interest of more than €9,000 per year for a flat costing €130,000, held own funds amounting to €86.2 million at the end of 2014, the last period for which accounts have been deposited in the commercial registry.
The company generated revenues of €38.6 million in 2014, in line with the preceding year. Its profit amounted to €627,000, compared with a loss of more than €1 million in 2013. The debt repayment calendar of Hoteles Marina d’Or, a limited company that is fully owned by Jesús Ger, was clear at the end of 2014. Last year, it had to repay €1.2 million; this year €1.4 million; and in 2017, €2.8 million. In 2018, the amount will increase to €4.6 million and from 2019, to €87.5 million. In total, the company’s debt amounts to almost €100 million. (…)
The return means multiplying the average interest rate on one- and two-year deposits by 30, given that on average such deposits paid out 0.23% in July. Nevertheless, the return is not quite so far-fetched in the real estate world. Sources in the sector acknowledge that it is high, given that holiday apartments offer around 4% in their contracts, and that it depends on the tourist occupancy rates in the area. In any case, there is a risk, given that the hotel company is responsible for paying that interest rate.
Original story: Cinco Días (by Pablo M. Simón y Laura Salces)
Translation: Carmel Drake
9 June 2015 – Expansión
The real estate group Colonial is branching out from its traditional office market. It will open a resort hotel in Mojácar (Almería) in the next few weeks.
(…)
The building has been closed for years and so Colonial has undertaken a complete renovation of the property over the last few months. The facilities include the former Palace of the Marqués de Chávarri, constructed at the beginning of the last century, which will house some of the hotel’s common areas as well as some of the suites. It also has a large modern annex building which contains 140 rooms in total.
The hotel will be operated by the Catalan chain Fergus, under its Fergus Style brand. It will be called the Gran Hotel Palacio de la Marina and will be a four star establishment. It is located in the Marina de la Torre development, next to Marina Golf, an 18-hole course. The hotel has a fitness room, spa and several rooms for conferences and events.
Fergus Hotels, headquartered in Santa Susanna (Barcelona) operates 17 hotels in Mallorca, Ibiza, the coast of Barcelona, the Costa Brava (Gerona) and the coast of Almería.
(…)
Original story: Expansión
Translation: Carmel Drake
Portugal 
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