Tag: supermarkets

Bankinter & Sonae’s Socimi Buys Retail Asset For €4.7M

31 July 2017 – Eje Prime

The Socimi Ores is continuing its shopping spree in Spain. The real estate arm of Bankinter and the Portuguese firm Sonae Sierra is fattening up its asset portfolio in Spain with the purchase of a new retail space, on this occasion in Cádiz. The acquisition of the property, which is leased to the supermarket chain Aldi, has involved an investment of €4.7 million by the group, which was launched in February when it debuted on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB).

The Socimi, which started out without any assets in its portfolio, has been acquiring different properties over the last two months. The latest is located in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, in Cádiz, has a retail surface area of 2,085 m2 and can be found at number 13 on Avenida de Guzmán el Bueno.

“With this acquisition, which has been financed entirely using own funds, the company is continuing to fulfil the investment objectives set out in its Business Plan and in accordance with the financial parameters agreed with its shareholders”, say sources at Ores Socimi.

Another one of the most recent acquisitions undertaken by Bankinter and Sonae’s real estate investment vehicle involved an asset located in Oviedo that the company purchased in May. Located in the Montecerraro neighbourhood, the retail property is leased to Mercadona and has a surface area of more than 2,700 m2. Ores paid €5.8 million for that asset.

Also in May, the Socimi acquired the establishment that the German electronics chain MediaMarkt leases in Braga, in Portugal. That point of sale has a gross leasable area of 4,986 m2 and was acquired for €5.7 million.

Nevertheless, Ores made its debut purchase in April, when it acquired its first two real estate assets. The company, which invests only in retail premises, bought two stores located in the Artea and Galari retail parks in Bilbao and Pamplona, respectively, for which it paid €18.7 million. Both assets, which have a combined surface area of 8,400 m2, are leased to the sports equipment chain Forum Sport.

Ores is aimed at private banking clients. Although for the time being, its portfolio of assets is relatively small, the Socimi made its debut on the stock market with the aim of investing €400 million in high street premises, supermarkets, retail parks (up to a maximum surface area of 20,000 m2), bank branches and singular assets with long-term rental contracts and solvent tenants (…).

Ores was created from contributions made by Bankinter’s private banking clients (in other words, HNWIs) through a capital increase amounting to €196.6 million. In this way, the private banking clients and some institutional investors control almost 86% of the company’s share capital. The entity led by María Dolores Dancausa, meanwhile, has retained ownership of a 10% stake and Sonae Sierra owns just under 4%.

Original story: Eje Prime (by C. Pareja)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Saint Croix Acquires Blanco Store On c/Goya For €15M

13 February 2017 – Eje Prime

Saint Croix, the Socimi owned by the Colomer family, has won the bid to acquire the Blanco store located on Calle Goya in Madrid. The company has spent €15 million on the premises, which several other investors, including Jesús Antúnez, also bid for. Antúnez came close to winning, but Saint Croix took the prize in the end.

The Socimi owned by the Colomer family (which also owns the real estate developer Pryconsa) has spent €15.25 million acquiring the property, which has a gross leasable area of 863 m2. In other words, it has paid a price equivalent to more than 17,600/m2. The company has also acquired two parking spaces as part of the operation.

Until now, the premises were owned by the real estate arm of the former owner of the Madrilenian chain Blanco (which specialises in fashion retail), namely, Inversiones Blasol. The company, whose administrator is Bernardo Blanco Moreno (son of the founder of the Blanco fashion chain) and which was constituted in 19991 with the corporate purpose of leasing real estate assets, filed for voluntary creditors’ bankruptcy in December 2014 in Commercial Court number 10 of Madrid. The company is now in the middle of negotiating its bankruptcy arrangement.

Inversiones Blasol has several other assets up for sale, including a store on Calle Pelai, 1 in Barcelona. That establishment has a commercial area of 200 m2. Jesús Antúnez also bid for those premises, and sources consulted by Eje Prime report that he offered €4 million.

According to the most recent results filed by the company, as at 30 September 2016, the Socimi had a portfolio comprising 209 assets, worth €339.26 million. They include retail premises, such as the Zara store on Conde de Peñalver (Madrid) and several supermarkets leased to Día; office buildings such as CLH’s headquarters on Calle Titán; and several four- and five-star hotels on Isla Canela (Huelva), managed by chains such as Iberostar, Meliá and Barceló.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Socimi Saint Croix Obtains €11.4M Loan From Banca March

23 January 2017 – Expansión

The listed company owned by the Colomer family, which also control the real estate company Pryconsa, has mortgaged one of its assets by way of guarantee for this loan, which has a maximum term of 14 years.

This long term loan from Banca March will allow the Socimi to continue with its business plans, which include managing properties worth more than €300 million.

Saint Croix is the vehicle through which the owners of Pryconsa, one of the few traditional real estate companies in the sector that survived the crisis, are managing their personal wealth.

At the end of September 2016, the Colomer’s Socimi owned a portfolio containing 209 assets, worth €339.26 million. They included retail premises, such as a Zara store on Conde de Peñalver (Madrid) and several supermarkets leased to Día; offices buildings such as the headquarters of CLH on Calle Titán; as well as a large portfolio of hotels, including five 4-star and 5-star hotels on Isla Canela (Huelva), managed by hotel chains such as Iberostar, Meliá and Barceló.

During the first nine months of 2016, Saint Croix earned €10.46 million, 18% less than during the same period a year earlier, after generating turnover of €13 million, down by 5% compared to the same period in 2015.

Original story: Expansión (by Rocío Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Bankinter Launches A €400M Socimi For Its Private Banking Clients

27 December 2016 – Expansión

Bankinter has started to offer its private banking clients a new investment project. It is a Socimi, which the entity plans to launch on the MAB in around two months time. This entity will invest in commercial assets, such as supermarket, hypermarkets, retail premises and parks, as well as bank branches, in sought-after locations. The aim is to invest around €400 million in assets, of which around €200 million will come from contributions made by the entity’s clients and the remaining 50% from financing. The minimum investment per client will be €250,000, up to a maximum of 10% of their financial wealth.

For the launch of this investment vehicle, Bankinter has sought a partner with experience in the Spanish real estate market and in the management of commercial assets. The Portuguese real estate company Sonae Sierra, which owns more than 40 international projects in Europe, Africa and South America, seven of which are located in Spain, will take care of the search for and management of the assets that the Socimi buys. Like Bankinter, it will hold a minority stake in the new company, and two of its representatives will sit on the Board of Directors and on the Investment Committee.

Meanwhile, the bank led by María Dolores Dancausa will have three Board members and two representatives on the Investment Committee.

Anchor investors

The two partners will invest a maximum of €15 million in the case of Bankinter, with a minimum of €7.5 million; and €7.5 million in the case of Sonae, with a minimum of €3.75 million, if they achieve €200 million in equity for the upcoming stock market debut.

The Socimi will focus on buying commercial properties located mainly in Spain (the idea is that Spanish assets will account for 65% of the total portfolio) and the rest in Portugal. The minimum investment volume by operation will be €5 million to €20 million per asset or per portfolio of properties.

All of the assets that the Socimi acquires must be in good locations with long-term contracts that will run for at least five years. Its potential tenants include retail groups such as Mercadona, Carrefour and Día and other large operators such as Leroy Merlin and Decathlon.

Although the investment vehicle does not own any assets yet, it is already analysing ten operations, having made a series of non-binding offers. These deals include the purchase of a portfolio of hypermarkets worth €150 million and the acquisition of a retail park for around €20 million.

The Socimi hopes to achieve a gross asset value yield of between 6% and 6.5% during the first two years, which is higher than the returns offered by other listed real estate companies such as Axiare, Merlin and Realia, which this year expect to offer yields of 4.8%, 3.2% and 4.5%, respectively, according to information provided by Bankinter to its potential investors.

The aim of this Socimi is to offer an average annual dividend of between 4.5% and 5%, which is a much higher return than those offered by other banking products currently on the market. (…).

Original story: Expansión (by Rocío Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Savills: RE Inv’t In The Retail Sector Totalled €2,400M In 2015

14 March 2016 – Cinco Días

Real estate investors really like the retail sector in Spain. In fact, last year, they demonstrated their interest through the purchase of shopping centres, hypermarkets, supermarkets and other retail outlets. In 2015, total investment in the sector amounted to €2,400 million, to reach a new peak in the historical series prepared by the consultancy firm Savills, which dates back to the year 2000.

This data is better than any recorded during the real estate boom years of the last decade. The figure represents an increase of 14% with respect to 2014 and of 10% with respect to the market peak to date, recorded in 2006.

In terms of the number of operations in this segment, the increase of 35% with respect to last year, with 46 investment operations, also marked a new record with respect to the level reached in 2014, when 35 operations were signed.

Moreover, sources at Savills say that the pace of activity does not seem to have slowed down so far in 2016 – the number of transactions to date is in line with the number recorded during the first quarter last year. Almost €600 million has been invested so far this year, which represents a level similar to the annual volume recorded during the years of the crisis, between the period from 2009 to 2013.

The consultancy firm calculates that the current portfolio of operations in the pipeline (pending signing) and assets that are going to come onto the market in the short term could amount to an additional €2,500 million.

On the investor side, Socimis have become key players, with new players such as Lar España, which has attracted hundreds of millions in foreign funding.

In any case, cross-border investment by European and US funds accounted for more than two thirds of the total in 2015 and almost all of the investment made so far this year. On the sell side, international firms also account for most of the activity. “Players who purchased at the low point in the cycle and those that are now looking to rotate their assets are taking advantage of the recovery to generate more profits”, say the sources.

The largest transaction last year involved the sale of the Puerto Venecia shopping centre in Zaragoza, which Intu acquired from the fund Orion Capital for €451 million. That was followed by the sale of the Plenilunio shopping centre, which Klépierre bought from the same fund for €375 million. In third place was the sale of a portfolio of Eroski supermarkets to Invesco for €358 million.

Original story: Cinco Días (by A. Simón)

Translation: Carmel Drake

ECI Puts 200 Properties Up For Sale For €1,000M

1 March 2016 – Expansión

Launch of Operation Batman / At the end of March, the retail giant will start to sell off dozens of logistics assets, supermarkets, offices and plots of land, in an effort to reduce its level of debt.

El Corte Inglés is making progress with its plan to divest its non-strategic real estate assets, in an effort to reduce its debt, with the launch of a huge real estate asset sales process. The retail giant is planning to put the For Sale sign up over a batch of 200 properties with an approximate value of €1,000 million.

This batch of assets includes up to 102 supermarkets – some of which are operational, whilst others are closed – , 32 logistics assets, which cover a surface area of 500,000 m2 and several plots of land. It also includes 50 high street retail outlets, with a combined surface area of 180,000 m2, and 20 office properties located in Madrid and Barcelona.

The process, dubbed internally as Operation Batman, is being coordinated by Morgan Stanley, which has collaborated with the El Corte Inglés in other operations. Meanwhile, Clifford Chance is responsible for providing legal advice.

According to sources close to the operation, the company intends to put this portfolio of assets up for sale at the end of this month. For the time being, the company has commissioned the valuation of the properties, with a view to receiving the first non-binding offers on 16 May and the definitive offers by the middle of July. The objective of Dimas Gimeno, the President of the El Corte Inglés, is to complete the asset sales before August.

The upcoming operation is attracting growing interest in the market. Most of the large funds, insurance companies and even some of the larger Socimis have expressed their interest in participating in the auction.

The company will accept offers for all of the properties, as well as for separate lots, if the potential purchaser is interested in buying, for example, only those assets linked to the logistics operations, the supermarkets or the offices. El Corte Inglés is not including the joy of its logistics crown in the lot: its megacentre in the south of Madrid. Nor is it willing to divest Torre Titania, or its historical headquarters in Hermosilla. (…).

Original story: Expansión (by R. Ruiz/A. Antón)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Miquel Alimentació Will Sell Business But Retain RE Assets

6 July 2015 – Expansión

On Friday, Miquel Alimentació announced that it is in advanced negotiations to sell its business to the Chinese state-owned group, Bright Food. The Asian food sector giant will acquire all of the business lines of the Spanish distribution company, which owns 63 GM Cash stores and more than five hundred supermarkets, operated under the Suma and Spar brand franchises.

The Miquel family, which currently owns 100% of the share capital, will nevertheless retain ownership of all of the group’s real estate assets. In this sense, it will continue to be linked to the business as it will lease all of the wholesale distribution company’s  logistics platforms and cash & carry stores to Bright Food.

According to Miquel Alminenació, Bright Food “has expressed its interest” in retaining the strategic lines identified by the existing management team and in preserving the organisational structure and the jobs at the Girona group. The objective of the company chaired by Ramon Miquel is to generate turnover of €1,024 million this year.

With headquarters in Shanghai and publicly owned share capital, Bright Food is an industrial conglomerate comprising 22 food and distribution companies, with turnover of €18,000 million. The purchase of Miquel Alimentació will be its first in the distribution sector in Europe, and it will open the door to the Asian market for the sale of the more than 17,000 product reference lines and 2,000 own-branded products that the Miquel group currently distributes.

The operation has been brokered by GBS Finanzas. KPMG has advised the vendor and the law firm Baker & Mckenzie has advised the buyer. The purchase now depends on the relevant authorisations from the European competition court and also the administrative procedures in China.

Original story: Expansión (by S. Saborit)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Caprabo’s Former Owners Put 33 Supermarkets Up For Sale

7 May 2015 – Expansión

The Carbó, Botet and Elías families, i.e. the former owners of the supermarket chain Caprabo, have decided to cash in (some of) the real estate assets they own through their investment vehicle Caboel.

This company was created by Caprabo’s three founding families in 1986, in order to manage the real estate assets owned by the supermarket chain. The Carbó family and its partners excluded the retail premises, warehouses and other properties from the transaction when they sold the company to Eroski in 2007.

Now, Caboel has put a batch of 33 supermarkets up for sale (around a third of the total number they own), most of which are located in Barcelona and its metropolitan area, with a total surface area of 88,410 square metres. The portfolio, known as Blue Box, contains properties that generate annual rental income of €6.93 million.

All of the premises continue to be leased to Caprabo, under long-term contracts (the majority expire on 31 December 2028 and at the end of 2033). The 33 properties include shops measuring just over 500 square metres and one store measuring 18,500 square metres in El Masnou. In addition to the retail space, the properties up for sale include more than 3,000 parking spaces.

Caboel has engaged the consultant CBRE to manage the sale. This lot has generated a lot of interest in the market, due to its “unique” nature. Possible buyers include several Socimis, the real estate division of Generali, Zaphir and Drago Capital, said sources close to the process. Bids (are expected to) amount to around €100 million, explain market sources.

It is expected that binding offers will be received within the next few weeks and that transaction will close before the summer.

Original story: Expansión (by R. Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake