The Losantos Family Puts Neinver Up for Sale for €500M+

26 December 2018 – Cinco Días

One of the historical names of Spanish real estate, the Losantos family, is putting its real estate firm Neinver up for sale for more than €500 million. Neinver specialises in building and managing retail outlets and is the company that manages shopping centres such as The Style Outlets and the Factory. It has a presence in several countries.

The company, chaired by José María Losantos del Campo, has engaged the bank Credit Suisse to search for interested parties in this multi-national firm that started life in La Rioja, according to four financial and real estate sources familiar with the operation. The financial entity and the company declined to comment about this operation.

The founder of the company, born in 1936, started out in the sale and purchase of tinplate, together with his brother Mario, and later founded Neinver in 1969. Mario would go on to found Riofisa, one of the large real estate empires in Spain (…).

José María Losantos grew Neinver, which is now headquartered in Alcobendas (Madrid), specialising in turnkey projects, for example, in several wineries, and which has opted for shopping centres over the last two decades. His son, Daniel Losantos, serves as the firm’s CEO. The real estate company has, in turn, been controlled by the company Teckel Gestora since 2016, which also owns rural estates in Ciudad Real and which is owned by the patriarch of the family.

Neinver manages 600,000 m2 of commercial spaces, across almost 2,000 stores and in 15 outlet centres under the brand The Style Outlets and Factory, which span a commercial surface area of 300,000 m2.

The company has a joint venture to share ownership of some of these assets with TH Real Estate, the real estate arm of TIAA, the US teachers’ pension fund. Neinver controls a lot of these properties through 23 companies, according to reports from Insight View based on property registry data.

In addition to the centres in Spain, it owns assets together with TH Real Estate and other partners in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.

In Spain, it owns The Style Outlets – which are dedicated to the off-season sale of well-known brands – in Las Rozas, San Sebastián de los Reyes and Getafe (all three in Madrid), A Coruña and Viladecans (Barcelona), as well as the Madrilenian shopping centres Alegra and Nassica.

This search for buyers entrusted to Credit Suisse comes at a critical moment for investment in the Spanish real estate market, which is featuring many international funds and Socimis. So far this year, until the middle of December, a record investment figure of €18.719 billion has been registered, according to CBRE, up by 45% compared to 2017, boosted above all by the acquisition of companies. In the case of retail, €4.279 billion has been invested to date this year.

Original story: Cinco Días (by Alfonso Simón Ruis & Pablo Martín Simón)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Patron Capital Acquires Los Alcores Shopping Centre

30 April 2017 – ABC

A constant and silent trickle of investments has seen a significant number of the shopping centres in Andalucía change hands. The latest operation was closed in March, when the investment fund Patron Capital – which is headquartered in London and which has a portfolio worth more than €5,000 million – acquired Los Alcores, the most well-known establishment in Alcalá de Guadaíra (with a leasable area of 124,000 m2). Its tenants include H&M, Lefties, Bershka, Stradivarius and Cinesur.

The shopping centre, located at the foot of the A-92 motorway, has belonged to Incus Capital since 2013, just like El Mirador (in Cuenca) and Alzamora (in Alcoy). Now, these three properties have been acquired by Patron Capital, which has joined forces with the firm Eurofund to invest more than €13 million modernising the properties.

According to the experts, the operation makes sense, “Los Alcores is located in an area that will be served by the metro in the near future and which has large residential projects underway nearby, such as Hacienda Rosario being constructed by Aedas Homes; it is highly visible from the motorway and its tenants include many household names”, said Rosa Madrid, Director of CBRE in Andalucía, the firm that advised the operation.

A report by this consultancy highlights that the shopping centre business has “been recovering for several years and recorded a successful year in 2016”. Behind this rise is “the increase in consumption and, therefore, the good indicators in terms of visitor numbers and sales, which improved by 3.1% and 1.6%, respectively (taking the portfolio of shopping centres managed by CBRE in Spain as a sample)”.

From there, the significant interest from the major commercial brands in growing again, “which has allowed shopping centre occupancy rates to increase at a good pace”. In the CBRE portfolio, “the average occupancy rate rose from 89.6% to 93.9% between 2014 and 2016, figures that illustrate the improvement in the sector”.

If we look at what has happened over the last twelve months, it is clear that this sector “is on a roll”. At the end of 2016, the Via Outlet group – in which the London-based giant Hammerson owns a stake – purchased The Style Outlet in the town of San José de la Rinconada (better known as “The Airport Factory”). Until now, that establishment has belonged to a fund promoted by the Spanish real estate company Neinver (controlled by the Losantos family). Its major rival, the Outlet de Dos Hermanas, had already been acquired by Green Oak, just a few months earlier.

Major sales

These operations joined a long list, which also includes Grupo Lar, which sold the Airesur de Castilleja de la Cuesta shopping centre to CBRE Global Investors. And an Andalucían company has also made money in this wave, specifically, the case of Bogaris, which sold six retail parks in Andalucía and Extremadura to Redevco Iberian Ventures in the middle of last year for €95 million (including Kinepolis Pulianas, las Marismas del Polvorín and the Motril retail park).

And the activity does not end there: Axiare Patrimonio purchased the Viaparck shopping centre in Almería for €20 million; Alpha Pyrenees Trust bought the Connecta shopping centre in Córdoba….and just a few weeks ago, New Winds Group (the owner of the Windsor building in Madrid) purchased Málaga Plaza shopping centre. Just another sign of the good health of a business that is taking off again.

Original story: ABC (by Luis Montoto)

Translation: Carmel Drake