Swiss Life Buys a Hotel in Valencia from Grupo Senator for €24.5M

13 June 2019 – Expansión

The Swiss fund Swiss Life has purchased the Hotel Senator Parque Central in Valencia from Grupo Senator for €24.5 million in a sale and leaseback operation.

The 4-star hotel, which has 192 rooms, spans 12,851 m2 and is located in a central area of the Mediterranean city where a large urban park is planned once the nearby railway tracks have been moved underground.

Grupo Senator acquired the property from Sareb in 2017, which itself took ownership after the Valencian property developer that constructed it filed for bankruptcy in 2010.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Socimi Lar Sells its Last Office Building in Madrid to Swiss Life for €40M

24 April 2019 – Idealista

Lar España has sold the last office building left in its portfolio as it continues its strategy to specialise in the retail sector.

The Socimi has sold the property located at number 27 Calle Eloy Gonzalo, in the centre of Madrid, to the manager of the Swiss insurance company Swiss Life for €40 million. The building spans a surface area of 6,300 m2, distributed over 9 floors with various retail premises on the ground floor. The upper floors are leased in their entirety to the US coworking specialist WeWork.

Lar España acquired the property, which was constructed in the 1960s, for €12.7 million at the end of 2014.

Following this sale, the Socimi can now focus on the 14 assets in its retail portfolio (shopping centres and retail parks), which will become 15 after the summer, once the Lagoh shopping centre has been opened in Sevilla.

This represents the Swiss manager’s second purchase in Spain, following its acquisition of 13 retail premises from Corpfin Capital Prime Retail Assets in July 2018 for more than €83 million.

Various high-profile consultancy firms participated in the operation, with Cushman & Wakefield advising on the buy side and JLL and Knight Frank on the sell side.

Original story: Idealista (by Ana P. Alarcos)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Blackstone Negotiates Sale of the Ilunion Portfolio with Zurich for c. €100M

13 November 2018 – Cinco Días

The real estate giant Blackstone is pushing ahead with several divestments from its recently acquired Socimi Hispania. The US fund is negotiating with the insurance company Zurich regarding the sale of a portfolio of office buildings, which are occupied by Ilunion as a tenant, according to confirmation from sources in the real estate sector. The price of the operation will exceed €100 million.

Blackstone acquired Hispania through a takeover launched in the spring, which valued the Socimi at almost €2 billion. The US fund completed the operation because it was primarily interested in the company’s hotel assets, given that it owned 13,100 rooms across 46 hotels, the largest owner in the country in that segment. The US giant wants to create a hotel platform in Spain and, in fact, has already ceded the management of those establishments to its company HI Partners, the manager of other hotels purchased from Sabadell.

In total, Hispania’s portfolio has a gross asset value (GAV) of €2.811 billion. The most residual part, Hispania’s housing, is already being managed by another company owned by the fund, Fidere. And for the office component, the strategy is to divest the assets.

When Blackstone acquired Hispania, it broke off an agreement that the Socimi had with the British fund Tristan Capital Partners to divest the entire office portfolio for more than €500 million. That was the second time that the sale had been thwarted, previously Swiss Life was the buyer, in that case at the end of the summer in 2017, when the uncertainty surrounding the Catalan sovereignty process meant that the conditions of the insurance company were more demanding.

By contrast, the strategy now is to put this portfolio up for sale in a piecemeal fashion. The most advanced process relates to four properties in Madrid, which are all occupied by Ilunion, the holding company of the ONCE, as the tenant.

The largest property is the Torre 30 Building, appraised at €50 million at the end of 2017. Located next to the M-30 by the junction with the A-2, it was constructed in 1968, renovated in 2006 and has a surface area of 11,417 m2.

The sale also includes the Mizar Building, a property next to Torre 30, where in addition to Ilunion, Eysa and Paramount also have their headquarters, according to Hispania’s public documents, and which is worth €27.4 million. They are joined by the Pechuán building in Plaza Sagrado Corazón de Jesús next to Príncipe de Vergara, worth €19 million. Finally, the portfolio contains a property on Calle Comandante Azcárraga in the Pio XII area, worth €10.1 million.

Those four buildings had a combined appraisal value of €106.5 million as at 31 December 2017. Their current value is unknown but it is expected to be higher given that in May, Hispania revalued its assets upwards by 5.7% on average.

The rest of the office portfolio is not officially up for sale, but given that they are not strategic assets for Blackstone, the expectation is that it will receive offers for them, as a group or in different sub-portfolios.

Original story: Cinco Días (by Alfonso Simón Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Corpfin Agrees Sale Option for Gran Vía 55 in 2021

14 September 2018 – Eje Prime

Corpfin has placed one of its assets in Madrid. The real estate manager has agreed the sale in 2021 of a retail property located at number 55 Gran Vía, in Madrid. The company has signed a purchase option agreement, which the buyer of the property is expected to execute in 2021.

According to a statement filed by the company with the Alternative Investment Market (MAB), the agreement includes a payment by the buyer, whose identity has not been revealed, amounting to €2.64 million as an option premium.

The asset currently belongs to Corpfin Capital Prime Retail Assets II, which is owned by Corpfin Capital Prime Retail III Socimi (40%) and Corpfin Capital Prime Retail II Socimi (60%).

In July, the real estate manager sold thirteen retail premises to Swiss Life for €83 million, and in July, it purchased a centre operated by Makro in Madrid for €8 million. In April, Corpfin created a Socimi with €400 million to invest in high street premises.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Corpfin Sells 13 Commercial Premises to Swiss Life for €83M

10 July 2018 – Idealista News

The Swiss do not only come to Spain to go on holiday. Through its real estate arm, the insurance company Swiss Life has purchased thirteen premises from the fund Corpfin Capital Prime Retail Assets (Ccpr) for €83 million.

The sales have been carried out through the two Corpfin Socimis that are listed on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB): Corpfin Capital Prime Retail II Socimi (Ccpr II) and Corpfin Capital Prime Retail III Socimi (Ccpr III). The contract for the sale of the portfolio was signed in June, according to Idealista News.

Swiss Life is investing in Spain for the first time. It already tried to enter the  Iberian real estate market with the acquisition of a package of offices from Hispania. The Socimi, which put that portfolio up for sale for €500 million, subsequently pulled out of the sale following the public takeover bid from Blackstone and the political instability in the country.

With assets worth €69.2 billion in the Pan-European market, Swiss Life focuses its investment in the office business, which accounts for 37% of its portfolio, followed by the residential business with 32%. Retail accounts for just 16% of its investments and the remainder of its portfolio is split between the logistics sector, the hotel segment and alternative assets.

In the case of Corpfin, the group founded by Javier Basagoiti created a new Socimi in April with €400 million to invest in high street stores. The roadmap for Basagoiti’s company involves raising €200 million this year to double the capital by the end of 2021.

Original story: Idealista News

Translation: Carmel Drake

The Catalan Independence Movement Scuppers the Largest Real Estate Deal of the Year in Spain

1 November 2017

It was expected that Swiss Life would pay roughly €500 million for Hispania’s office assets.  The sector has succumbed to fears of contagion due to the political instability

It was the first major real estate deal thwarted by the independence process. And the operation was for nothing less than 500 million euros, which would presumably have made it the largest transaction of the year. Socimi Hispania has been forced to suspend the sale of its portfolio of offices, which began last March and which, before the summer, had been practically finalised with the insurer Swiss Life. The operation’s death knell was the current market uncertainty generated by the independence movement in Catalonia.

“Given the currently uncertain circumstances in Catalonia, the company has decided to postpone the divestment of assets from the portfolio of branches until the first quarter of 2018,” the firm acknowledged on Tuesday in a statement to the CNMV. The possibility of a cancellation of the sale had already been floated in recent weeks.

The company owned by investor George Soros (16.7% of the capital) intended to sell a portfolio of 24 office blocks. The real estate company valued – in its accounts as of June 30 – these assets at a total of €585 million.

Five of these buildings, with a value calculated at €118 million, are in Barcelona, Europa Press reported. The socimi has chosen to suspend the sale for a few months. The company intends to resume the sales process next year if the situation has improved.

Several sources who are knowledgeable of the process indicate that the deal had been practically closed at the end of the summer, barring some minor details, but that Swiss Life hardened the conditions of the deal due to a lack of clarity regarding the Catalan political situation.

This is a severe blow to the real estate sector, according to several market sources, since Swiss Life has a conservative buyer profile, a type of investor that generally appears when the economy is stabilised, replacing other types of investors, such as opportunistic funds, which have led the recovery of the sector in recent years.

In fact, experts point out that the failed deal can signal a lack of confidence to other institutional, insurance and international pension funds seeking conditions of stability. Deutsche Bank, Axa and Generali are others of this type of buyers who made investments in Spain in recent months. Among the largest deals of the year was the sale of Madrid Xanadú, acquired by the British operator Intu for around €520 million.

Hispania’s offer to sell its portfolio of offices fits within its strategy for the real estate sector, which now has the ultimate goal of becoming focused solely on the hotel industry. The socimis investment plan has 2020 as its horizon, at which point it plans to seek new shareholders interested in the hotel business. The company is managed externally by the Azora Group, led by Concha Osácar and Fernando Gumuzio.

Original Story: El País – A. Simón

Translation: Richard Turner

Hispania’s Manager, Azora, Prepares Hotel Vehicle For Portugal

23 October 2017 – El Confidencial

The largest hotel Socimi in Spain may soon have a replica in Portugal. Azora, the manager of Hispania, is working on the creation of a new vehicle to enter the Portuguese market, on the basis that, over the next few years, it expects to see a repeat there of the recovery that the Spanish real estate market is experiencing at the moment.

The Director-General of Hispania, Cristina García-Peri, revealed Azora’s plans at the Barcelona Meeting Point conference, which was held in the Catalan capital last week. “We are looking at the Portuguese holiday market”, said the director, who also highlighted the opportunities that the country’s two major cities, Lisbon and Porto, have to offer.

Sources consulted by El Confidencial confirm that Azora’s strategy is aimed at constituting a new vehicle, given that Hispania’s mandate focuses solely on the Spanish market. As such, the firm is currently making contact with several funds to define the terms of the project.

The example of what Azora has done with Hispania is the best endorsement that the manager can show investors to attract them towards this new proposal, given that the firm founded by Concha Osácar and Fernando Gumuzio considers that the Portuguese market is very similar to the Spanish market and therefore, they already have a wealth of knowledge in terms of both the product and the environment.

Following in Hispania’s footsteps

Created three and a half years ago, Hispania has become the largest owner of hotels in the country in that short space of time, with 36 establishments and more than 10,350 beds. Most of its properties are located in the Canary and Balearic Islands.

Moreover, in the summer, the Socimi acquired a plot of land in Teguise (Lanzarote), where it is going to build a new five-star establishment with 225 rooms, which it will integrate with the existing Occidental Playa and Barceló Lanzarote hotels, to create a mega-resort with 1,033 rooms, the largest in Hispania’s whole portfolio.

Despite the success achieved with its tourist business, in the spring, Azora made a proposal to the Socimi’s shareholders, led by George Soros, to activate the divestment period for the vehicle and whereby renounce the option of converting it into a permanent entity.

This decision has meant that the company has activated a formal process to sell its entire office portfolio. To this end, it has been holding exclusive negotiations with the insurance company Swiss Life for several months now and it has also started to divest its 754 residential properties, one by one.

In terms of Hispania’s hotels, which account for the bulk of its portfolio, it has until December 2020. Until then, the Socimi will focus on continuing to acquire assets, as well as improving and actively managing the ones it already owns to allow it to increase its rate of return on these investments from 10% to 12%.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Ruth Ugalde)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Sareb Appoints Azora To Manage Its First Socimi, Témpore Properties

21 September 2017 – El Confidencial

Sareb has chosen one of the largest experts in the management of rental housing in Spain to commandeer its first Socimi. The expert in question is Azora, an independent firm with almost 15 years experience and more than €3,000 million of assets under management. Azora’s key milestones include the creation and management of Hispania, one of the largest Socimis in Spain.

After organising a competitive process between several candidates, the entity chaired by Jaime Echegoyen (pictured above), has chosen the management firm founded by Concha Osácar and Fernando Gumuzio to take the reins at Témpore Properties, the name that Sareb has given to its first Socimi. The appointment is still pending the final approvals.

Sareb’s new vehicle will own around 1,500 rental properties, worth almost €200 million. The entity wants to place the assets, which have been valuedby CBRE, on the market before the end of the year.

Having engaged Renta 4 as the registered advisor and Clifford Chance as legal counsel, the next major challenge for Sareb will be to convince the greatest possible number of investors about the virtues of the Socimi, given that, although its market debut will be made on the MAB – the Alternative Investment Market – Echegoyen’s aim is to sell the highest percentage of share capital possible.

In this way, Azora will play an important role, given that over the course of its history, it has managed more than €1,700 million from institutional investors through its five funds, as well as having a cover letter from Hispania, whose illustrious shareholders include none other than George Soros.

Nevertheless, in recent times, the management firm has been focusing on the divestment of the bulk of these vehicles, given that they are now reaching maturity.

In fact, this week, the firm closed the sale of Resa, the largest student hall of residence company in Continental Europe, which formed part of Lazora, a vehicle with which the manager started when it focused exclusively on rental homes.

Moreover, since the spring, the firm has been actively working on the liquidation of the fund Azora Europa 1 as well as of the Socimi Hispania, which is on the verge on selling its entire office portfolio to the insurance firm Swiss Life.

Azora is also behind the sale of 3,000 homes in the Community of Madrid to Goldman Sachs, which now comprise the company Encasa Cibeles, and of the purchase of four Consell Comarcal de Barcelonés developments from several Catalan town halls, assets that it has just debuted on the MAB through its Socimi Colón Viviendas.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Ruth Ugalde)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Hispania Sells Its Portfolio of Offices to Swiss Life

9 August 2017

 

The Ázcarraga 3 building in the Chamartín district (Madrid)

The Spanish REIT, which counts George Soros as an investor, is close to finalizing the sale of about twenty office buildings to focus on its hotel business.

Everything is ready for the sale of Hispania’s portfolio of offices, one of the most anticipated deals in the real estate market. Absent any last-minute hiccups, the Spanish REIT, which counts George Soros as an investor, will sign an agreement with Swiss Life for the sale of some twenty office buildings for about 510 million euros, according to EXPANSIÓN’s sources.

Hispania’s office portfolio is distributed between Madrid, where 16 buildings are located, as well as two offices in two buildings and one asset under development, Barcelona and Málaga, with five and one building each.

The real estate consultants CBRE, JLL and the law firm Freshfields have advised Hispania, while Swiss Life has been advised by Aguirre Newman and Garrigues.  The deal is expected to be finalized in the coming weeks, or even days.

According to the latest information provided by Hispania, the Spanish REIT’s portfolio of offices had a value of 584 million euros at the end of the first semester of 2017. This assessment included the Aurelio Menéndez building, sold in June to a family office for 37.5 million euros. Hispania plans on keeping its commitment to execute pending works on the asset, which it expects to complete in November, at which time the sale of the building will be finalized.

Not including Aurelio Menéndez, Hispania has offices with almost 182,000 square meters of gross leasable area, of which almost 21,300 meters are in Madrid’s financial district. It also has another 116,852 square meters in office buildings in the prime secondary zone. Hispania has 39,506 square meters in Barcelona and 4,288 square meters in Malaga.

According to the latest information published by Hispania, the occupancy level in these buildings is 84%, with an average monthly income of 13.8 euros per square meter.

Hispania acknowledged this morning in a relevant fact to the market that is negotiating the sale of office assets and added that it maintains contacts with, among others, Swiss Life, although it added that it has not yet reached any agreement on the matter.

Divestment

With this operation, the company managed by the Azora Group goes one step further in its strategy to divest itself of residential and office assets to focus on the hotel business, in which it will continue to invest before putting those assets up for sale as well.

In this regard, in February Hispania announced its intention to continue with its initial objective of selling all its assets, individually, in portfolios or through a sale or change of control in the company, before March 2020, six years after the company was floated. Under this strategy, shareholders decided to extend the investment period until 31 December.

In addition to George Soros, who controls 16.7% of the REIT through Soros Fund Management, Fidelity Management and Research (7%), Tamerlane (6%), BW Gestão de Investimentos (3,6%), BlackRock (3.3%) and AXA Investments (3%) are also investors.

Original Story: Expansion – R. Arroyo / S. Saiz

Translation: Richard Turner

Hispania Buys 2 Plots In Canary Islands For €13M

31 July 2017 – Idealista

Hispania is pushing ahead with its strategic plan and, to this end, has completed the purchase of two plots of land on which it will build 2 luxury resorts. The plots of land acquired by the Socimi for €13 million are located in the Canary Islands, specifically, in Lanzarote and Fuerteventura.

In addition to hotel resorts, the objective of the investment vehicle, in which the magnate George Soros holds a stake, is to incorporate retail, leisure and sports facilities into the complexes. The project looks set to involve a total investment of around €50 million in the case of Lanzarote alone.

Hispania already owns the Occidental Playa and Barceló Lanzarote hotels, and based on the plans that it has in mind, the five-star complex would contain more than 1,000 rooms, which would make it the largest establishment in Hispania’s portfolio. In Fuerteventura, the Socimi also owns several properties, including two hotels that it purchased in the summer of 2015 for just over €100 million.

Over the last week, Hispania has been in the news for several reasons. Firstly, it is negotiating the sale of 24 office buildings for around €500 million; the insurer Swiss Life is the final candidate in that process.

In addition, the Socimi saw the stock market debut of the investment vehicle that it shares with Grupo Barceló (known as Bay Hotels & Leisure), which started trading on 20 July with a market value of almost €500 million.

Original story: Idealista

Translation: Carmel Drake