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

Deloitte: 29 Shopping Centres Worth €1,531M Are Up For Sale

13 December 2016 – Expansión

Between January and October, investors spent €3,028 million buying shopping centres in Spain. That is a historical figure, which pulverises the volume registered in previous years. For example: in 2015, a record year in terms of real estate investment, investors spent 60% less on shopping centres than they did during the first ten months of 2016.

And this strong performance in the retail investment market looks set to continue, given that 29 more properties, with a combined value of €1,531 million, are expected to be sold during the final stretch of the year, according to Deloitte. (…) Of those, four have already changed hands, specifically, the outlet centres located in San Sebastián de los Reyes, Las Rozas and Getafe, which the joint venture owned by Nienver and Tiaa purchased on 23 November, as part of a wider European portfolio that also included three other centres in Italy and Poland, worth €700 million in total. Moreover, the same partnership completed the acquisition of the Nassica shopping centre in Getafe on the same day.

And these are not the only shopping centres that will be changing hands over the next few months, given that other new assets are expected to come onto the market next year, including the Madrid Xanadú shopping centre in Arroyomolinos.

In total, forecasts indicate that transactions amounting to almost €2,000 million (specifically, €1,932 million) will be closed in 2017, with another €604 million worth of shopping centres expected to be sold in 2018, according to sources at the professional services firm.

Gains

Most of the shopping centres that will have new owners over the next 18 months belong to overseas funds that bought these assets before the recovery of the sector, and which now have the opportunity to unwind their investments with significant gains just a few years after they bought them. “The decrease in the risk premium and the recovery in consumption are some of the reasons behind the 16% appreciation in this type of asset over the last 12 months”, said Javier García-Mateo, Financial Advisory Partner at Deloitte.

In fact, we have already seen operations of this kind in 2016, such as the sale of the Gran Vía de Vigo shopping centre, which the fund Oaktree sold in the summer to the Socimi Lar España for €145 million. The US fund had acquired the centre two years earlier for €115 million. (…). Meanwhile, Northwood sold Diagonal Mar for €495 million after buying it two years ago for around €150 million.

“Above all, the buyers of the shopping centres that will come up for sale in the short term will be core and core plus funds, which will take over from the more opportunist (distress) investors, which made their purchases during the previous period”, said García-Mateo. In this way, transactions amounting to €4,067 million are expected to be closed over the next two years; more than €1,200 million will be invested by institutional funds, insurance companies, and more risk-averse investors, followed by core plus investors, which will account for almost 40% of the total investment volume, compared with €108 million that opportunist funds are expected to invest in shopping centres, according to Deloitte.

Financing

Along with the improvement in the Spanish economy, another question that will help this investment volume will be the better access to financing for this kind of operation.

In this sense, more than 55% of the €4,067 million that is expected to be invested in shopping centres between now and 2018 will benefit from financing, for more than 50% of the total asset value, compared with 16% that will not be financed by any kind of loan.

Original story: Expansión (by Rocío Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Neinver & Tiaa Acquire Six New Outlet Centres

24 November 2016 – Expansión

The Spanish real estate firm Neinver and the financial services firm Tiaa have signed an agreement to acquire six outlet centres in Europe, three of which are located in Spain.

Through their joint company, the firms have acquired a block of six outlets which Neinver has been managing and whose value amounts to €700 million. The funds belonged to the fund Irus European Retail Property Fund, in which Neinver holds a 25% stake.

The overseas outlets are located in Poland (Poznan) and Italy, specifically Castel Guelfo, close to Bolonia, and Vicolungo, located in the vicinity of Milan and Turin.

In Spain, the company has acquired Neinver’s three large outlets, located in San Sebastián de los Reyes, Las Rozas and Getafe. In addition, the alliance between Neinver and Tiaa has also finalised the purchase of the Nassica shopping centre, which they have purchased from KKR for €140 million.

Once this latest operation has been signed, which is expected to happen during the first quarter of 2017, the joint venture will have a gross asset value (GAV) of more than €1,200 million, making it one of the most important investors in commercial assets in the country.

At the beginning of 2015, Neinver and TH Real Estate (a subsidiary of Tiaa) signed a strategic alliance, in which they each hold a 50% stake, to create a leading platform for outlet centres in Europe. This joint company already owns three centres in Poland and one in France, as well as the Viladecans The Style Outlet, which opened recently in Barcelona.

Original story: Expansión (by R.Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

TH Real Estate Offers €450M For Diagonal Mar

14 June 2016 – Expansión

The owner of the shopping centre Diagonal Mar, the British fund Northwood, has received a binding offer amounting to €450 million from TH Real Estate. This amount almost triples the €160 million that Northwood paid for the Barcelona-based shopping centre in 2013.

It is not the only offer that has been presented, given that TH Real Estate’s proposal was accompanied by two others from funds whose name has not been revealed. The sale of the asset is being brokered by the consultancy firm CBRE, which has declined to comment on the deal, along with TH Real Estate.

Diagonal Mar is the largest shopping centre in Cataluña, with a surface area of 87,500 sqm. Nevertheless, not all of the property is up for sale, given that 27,000 sqm are owned by Alcampo (which will hold onto its space).

Northwood acquired the centre at the worst time of the crisis, in 2013, from the Irish bad bank, which means that it could end up generating capital gains of €290 million in less than three years.

The investor

TH Real Estate is owned by the financial services provider TIAA. The origin of the company dates back to the London-based real estate manager, Henderson Real Estate, which was absorbed by the US group TIAA in 2014 to create TH Real Estate, which is also headquartered in the USA.

TH Real Estate manages real estate assets all over the world, covering 26,800 sqm, for around 50 investment funds and other operating mandates.

As well as TIAA’s assets in the USA, this platform integrates properties worth €83,900 million in total, which makes it one of the largest property managers in the world.

In Spain, TH Real Estate owns several shopping centres, including Islazul, in Madrid, measuring 90,000 sqm; Nervión in Sevilla, measuring 25,000 sqm; and Bulevar Getafe in Madrid, measuring 27,150 sqm. It also owns an industrial park in Alovera (Guadalajara) measuring 42,000 sqm.

The company has been present in Spain since 2007 and its Madrilenian headquarters is headed up by Manuel Martín. In recent years, as well as investments in operating assets, TH Real Estate has also undertaken co-investment projects, such as in the case of the Viladecans outlet (in Barcelona), where it joined forces with Neinver.

Original story: Expansión (by Marisa Anglés)

Translation: Carmel Drake