Tag: vehicle

Indian Fund Platinum Estates Creates €300M Fund to Buy Hotel Assets

28 May 2018 – Eje Prime

Platinum Estates is investing and divesting in Spain. The fund led by the Indian investor Harry Mohinani has launched a new vehicle, its third in Spain, to acquire hotel assets. The entity is going to have a purchasing capacity of €300 million.

In order to set up this new vehicle, Platinum Estates has been engaged in a period of divestment, according to El Confidencial. In recent months, Platinum Estates has agreed the sale of four Hilton establishments (Garden Inn Luton, Manchester Airport, Warwick and St. Anne’s Manor).

Moreover, the fund also sold a luxury residential development that it was promoting on c/General Oraá (Madrid) and Edificio Estel (Barcelona, pictured above), the building made famous for housing the headquarters of Telefónica and which it purchased at the height of the economic crisis.

The latter was the subject of the star operation in the divestment strategy of Mohinani’s fund, given that Platinum paid around €56 million for the property, four years ago, and has sold it for almost €150 million.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Corpfin Agrees Sale of 13 Premises for €83M

10 April 2018 – Expansión

Corpfin Capital Real Estate is preparing to rotate most of the assets in the portfolios owned by its listed Socimis. The fund manager chaired by Javier Basagoiti (pictured below) has reached an agreement with an investor to sell 13 of its 21 commercial properties for €83.33 million.

According to the terms of the agreement, the sale of the assets will be carried out before the end of 2020, to allow time for the Socimis to comply with the regulations that govern them, which require properties to be owned for at least three years in order for the companies to benefit from the exemption to pay tax on any gains obtained from transactions.

Corpfin has invested €114 million through CCPR II and CCPR III –its two listed Socimis – since 2014.

Following the sale of five premises, it now owns 21 assets on the main high streets of Madrid, San Sebastián, Burgos and Valencia, which are occupied by tenants such as McDonald’s, Vips, Starbucks, Zara and Mango.

Moreover, it has purchase options over three other assets in San Sebastián and Madrid.

The manager has just launched a new vehicle, Inbest, through which it plans to invest €400 million in high street assets between now and 2021, of which €200 million will proceed from own funds and the remainder from gearing.

The fundraising process for Inbest was initiated in February and is expected to conclude in December or whenever the funds reach the €200 million threshold. The structure of Inbest will include one Socimi from which four others will depend, which will all be listed on the stock market.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Mapfre & GLL Launch New €300M Office Fund

8 March 2018 – Iberian Property

The insurance company Mapfre and GLL have just formed a new partnership for the launch of a new investment fund amounting to €300 million.

The vehicle will focus on the purchase of offices in some of the major European markets, such as Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy and Luxembourg, according to the Spanish real estate firm. The idea is to achieve returns of 4%-6% per year, diversifying the portfolio of the entities.

In Spain, Mapfre already owns a portfolio of buildings including Plaza de la Independencia, 6 in Madrid and Torre Mapfre in Barcelona.

Original story: Iberian Property

Edited by: Carmel Drake

Lar Launches Fund to Coinvest in Residential Segment in Spain & Latam

12 March 2018 – Expansión

Founded in 1975 by Felipe Pereda, the real estate developer Lar was one of the few high-profile companies during the boom that survived the subsequent crash. Having become the manager of one of the largest real estate companies on the stock market, Socimi Lar España, the company owned by the Pereda family has not been neglecting its house building activity. “We are currently working on residential projects in seven countries. At the global level, we are working on projects involving 18,000 units”, explains Miguel Amo, Director General of the Lar Group.

This extensive portfolio also includes the Spanish market, where the company has focused on the residential business, after years of investing in shopping centres (it has a clause not to invest in commercial assets beyond the Socimi). “The first thing we did when we saw the signs of recovery in the market in 2013 was to team up with Fortress to acquire a portfolio containing almost 1,400 homes and plots of land spread all over Spain from Sareb. With that batch, we created a FAB (banking asset fund), which expires this year, with the delivery of the final homes. Next, we entered the luxury business, with Lagasca 99, a project that we are managing and in which we also hold a stake through the Socimi. And, with the market recovering, we saw the opportunity for new build projects”, said Amo.

First fund

Last year, after selecting several plots of land, Lar opted to create a fund, called Acacias Inmuebles, to promote seven projects with 450 homes in total. “The vehicle was created in July 2017 with €35 million and we have now invested 100%. We manage it and we own 30% of the vehicle (…) and the rest is owned by investors from Spain and Peru (…), explains the head of Lar.

In total, Acacias Inmuebles is going to promote five primary residence projects over the next three years in Madrid, Valencia, Málaga, Torremolinos and Sevilla, and two other second-home developments in the Malaga towns of Benalmádena and Mijas (…).

The success of that first vehicle has caused the real estate company to launch a second fund. “We are asking for a minimum capital investment of €500,000. It is a fund without any intermediary liquidity, but which will distribute dividends when the projects are handed over and the investments will be recovered within a period of between three and five years, with an approximate annual return of 12%”.

Besides Acacias and Lagasca, Lar owns other plots for the development of an additional 400 homes. “They are located in Móstoles (Madrid) and Valladolid; in the case of the latter, we will likely sell off some of the land to be developed by third parties”, said Amo. In addition to its activity in Spain, the majority of Lar’s developments are based abroad, primarily in Latin America.

Specifically, Lar, which was one of the first Spanish real estate companies to branch out overseas (in 1998) has 9,000 homes under construction in Mexico, another 5,000 in Peru and 1,300 in Colombia (…) “We are also building in Romania. We always do it by ourselves, in conjunction with a local team, and we are very happy with the results so far”.

Revenues

Thanks to all of these projects, Lar had forecast revenues of between €400 million and €450 million in 2017, which would be added to the fees received for the management of the Socimi. “2017 was a good year in all areas, we sold 1,500 homes in private contracts and 1,300 were notarised. This year, we will hand over 1,500 homes, of which between 200 and 300 will be in Spain”, highlights Amo.

Lar is also committed to buying land for its subsequent management. “In Spain, we are also going to intensify our investment in land. We think that developable land is running out all over Spain, after 10 years with no investment and, so there is a need to “manufacture” land. We want to acquire plots for at least 1,000 homes and if we can buy land for 3,000 units, then even better”.

Original story: Expansión (by Rocío Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Santander Will Sell 4% of Metrovacesa to Blackstone

11 December 2017 – Eje Prime

The real estate sector promises to end the year in style. As part of the sale of the €30 billion in toxic assets to the US fund Blackstone, Santander is also going to sell a 4% stake in Metrovacesa, the property developer set that is set to star in the major IPO of 2018, according to sources close to the operation.

Specifically, the US fund has acquired 51% of the share capital of the new company to which Santander is going to transfer all of those toxic assets, whilst the entity chaired by Ana Botín will retain control over the remaining 49%, according to El Confidencial. The agreements signed to this effect include one to transfer a stake in Metrovacesa to the new vehicle.

The property developer led by Jorge Pérez de Leza plans to make its debut on the stock market in February, with assets worth around €2.6 billion. This move will be subjected to a vote at the General Shareholders’ Meeting on 19 December.

Moreover, the company has just signed a €275 million loan to boost its property development plan. With this financing, the property developer is seeking to optimise its capital structure and give viability to its business plan for the next few years, which forecasts the delivery of around 5,000 homes per year from 2020 onwards. Moreover, the plan aims to position Metrovacesa with a land portfolio worth €2.6 billion.

This new financing arrangement has a five-year term, according to the company, which plans to launch around 4,000 housing units in 2018. Metrovacesa will primarily use the loan to ensure the urban development of some of its land portfolio and the launch of certain residential projects.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Vesta Real Estate Fund Invests €100M In Renewal In Portgual

26 October 2017 – Iberian Property

The new Vesta Real Estate Fund, which is headquartered in Luxembourg, is preparing to invest a total of €100 million in the acquisition and renewal of residential real estate in Portugal, and its subsequent retail sale.

The fund is the result of a partnership between Quantico, an investment company founded and headed by Carlos Vasconcellos Cruz (pictured above), Ubeda, from Carlos Mallo, and Bank of Andorra, specialised in private banking Andbank, and it is going to focus on opportunities in Lisbon, Estoril, Cascais and potentially Oporto.

With a lifespan of 6 years, this vehicle adopts the form of a SICAV-RAIF, supervised by the Luxembourg monetary authorities, and each property to renew will be acquired by a separate vehicle under Portuguese law. Clients of Andbank, Quantico and Ubeda, are the main participants of this fund, which has €100 million to apply over the next 12 to 18 months, according to a Quantico press release.

Carlos Vasconcellos and Carlos Mallo, advisors of the fund, explain that “despite an increase in the acquisition prices of real estate to renew in premium areas, there is still much work to be done and good investment opportunities in well-located buildings in prime areas of the city and Cascais, and which require deep renewal and high technical complexity”.

The managers explain that “we do not buy at speculative prices, and we believe that in Lisbon, Cascais and Oporto, there is room for selling prices to remain stable or even rise, as there is a significant gap between prices there and in other comparable European cities. Portugal, and particularly Lisbon/Cascais offer unbeatable levels of attractiveness and quality of life”.

Original story: Iberian Property (by Ana Tavares)

Edited by: Carmel Drake

Hispania Puts 5 Offices In Barcelona Up For Sale For €120M

14 February 2017 – Expansión

The Socimi wants to sell of the office buildings that it has in Barcelona to focus on hotels.

Divest to keep growing. That is the objective that the Socimi Hispania Activos Inmobiliarios has set itself for the year ahead.

The road map will be presented at the real estate company’s next general shareholders’ meeting, scheduled to take place in April. It is expected that the Socimi, in which the investor George Soros holds a stake, will ask its shareholders to extend this vehicle’s investment period, to focus on the purchase of hotels, and whereby move away from its initial strategy, which covered all kinds of assets for rent.

The Socimi, created and managed by the firm Azora, was designed to have an investment period of three years, which is due to come to an end this year. Its directors will ask its shareholders – including Soros, with his 16.7% stake; BlackRock (3.3%); and John Paulson (2.8%) – to extend the life of this vehicle, which now specialises in hotels.

To this end, the Socimi, which owns 25 office buildings, with a combined surface area of more than 153,000 m2, has decided to explore the sale of its office portfolio in Barcelona.

Hispania owns five buildings in Barcelona with a leasable surface area of around 39,000 m2 and with an average occupancy rate of 93% as at 30 September 2016. The assets include Edificio Cristal, with a GLA of 11,088m2, leased to ACS and Xerox, as well as the Les Gloriès complex, which comprises three buildings, two of which are fully occupied and one, which has an occupancy rate of more than 90%.

Hispania paid €80.3 million for these properties, although their book value as at 30 September 2016 amounted to more than €91 million, following investments made by the company.

Four months later, the Socimi has requested a new valuation of this batch and its aim is to generate around €120 million from the sale, say sources in the sector.

In addition to these properties in Barcelona, the Socimi owns another 20 properties: 19 in Madrid and one in Málaga. Hispania plans to sell the first batch within the next few months and hold onto the rest for the duration of 2017.

Block sale

Hispania could receive proceeds of around €500 million from the sale of its office portfolio. Nevertheless, a block sale would considerably reduce the number of potential buyers, due to the heterogeneity of the portfolio, which includes some properties with an occupancy rate of less than 50%, as well as one building that is not located in either of the two major Spanish markets (Madrid and Barcelona), which would deter some of the more institutional investment funds. (…).

The company has said that it will focus its next investments on hotel assets. Currently, Hispania owns 37 establishments with 10,407 rooms, making it the largest non-operator hotel owner in Spain. The company’s aim is to continue investing in establishments on the coast to reposition them. One of its most recent operations forms part of this strategy: the purchase of four hotels in the Canary Islands for €92 million. (…).

After debuting on the stock market in May 2016, with share capital of €550 million and no assets on its balance sheet, this real estate company – which adopted the Socimi structure in May 2016 – has managed to create a portfolio worth €1,684 million, with a capitalisation of €1,250 million.

During the first nine months of 2016, Hispania generated revenues of €100 million and profits of €136.7 million.

Original story: Expansión (by Rocío Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Sareb Puts 1,100 Homes Up For Rent In 20 Provinces

13 December 2016 – Público

On Monday, Sareb put around 1,100 homes up for rent, located in approximately twenty Spanish provinces. Most of the properties are new builds, but there are also some second-hand homes in the portfolio.

“The company is aware of the increasing demand in the rental market from different groups, such as young people, and it is trying to contribute to the growth in the availability rate of homes, through initiatives such as this one”, said Sareb in a statement.

The company has said that it intends to boost the rental of homes with the aim of avoiding their deterioration, covering their costs and facilitating their sale in the future, in order to fulfil its divestment mandate.

The assets are located in the provinces of: Alicante, Almería, Badajoz, Barcelona, Castellón, Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Girona, Guadalajara, Huelva, Lleida, Madrid, Málaga, Murcia, Pontevedra, Sevilla, Tarragona, Toledo, Valencia and Zaragoza.

Sareb, which was constituted at the end of 2012 in return for aid amounting to €41,300 million granted by Europe to the Spanish government to rescue the banking sector, has played a key role in the clean-up of the Spanish financial sector, by allowing those banks that received public help to transfer assets amounting to around €50,000 million to the vehicle.

Original story: Público

Translation: Carmel Drake

GreenOak Puts All Of Its Logistics Assets Up For Sale

29 November 2016 – El Confidencial

Early in the summer of 2015, the opportunistic fund GreenOak surprised the market by announcing its unbridled appetite for the Spanish logistics market. In June of that year, the vehicle funded and managed by John Carrafiell announced that it had just purchased five logistics assets in the Community of Madrid, with a combined surface area of 200,000 m2, and that it had agreed to acquire another 100,000 m2.

Over the next few months, the fund completed a barrage of operations, involving the acquisition of, amongst others: a 14,000 m2 platform, which became the largest logistics operation in the País Vasco in 2015; a 30,000 m2 asset in Toledo, leased to Schwepees; the Michelin logistics platform in Seseña, which has a surface area of 47,000 m2; and a portfolio covering 144,320 m2 spread across several properties in Zaragoza and Massalvés (Valencia), which it purchased from Prologis.

Thus, in just 12 months, GreenOak fulfilled its objective of acquiring a portfolio covering 500,000 m2, but rather than develop it, the US fund has now decided to put it up for sale, and whereby take advantage of the strong appetite from institutional investors and specialists in the sector. According to several sources familiar with the sale, the fund has opened a formal sales process, whose first key milestone was recorded last week, with the presentation of preliminary offers from interested parties.

The US firm Eastdil Secured, a subsidiary of Wells Fargo, is coordinating the process, according to the same sources, who point out that this advisor was also chosen by the Canadian fund Ivanhoe to coordinate the sales process of Xanadú, one of the largest shopping centres in Spain, which was sold for around €500 million.

GreenOak’s decision to divest its entire logistics portfolio is seen in the market as an operation by an opportunistic fund, which knew how to buy cheaply and which has decided to take advantage of the interest from more stable investors to generate rapid capital gains. The consideration for the operation is expected to exceed €200 million, compared with the figure of around €125 million that GreenOak has invested to build the portfolio.

Opportunistic buyer

GreenOak signed its first major property purchase in Spain in 2014, when it acquired seven shopping centres from the Dutch group Vastned Retail for €160 million. (…).

It then went onto buy the building located at number 77 on Calle Fuencarral, which it acquired from the General Social Security Treasrury for €21 million; followed by the Sevilla Factory shopping centre, which it bought for €12 million; an office building in Port Cornellá (Barcelona), which it purchased for €10.1 million; and four buildings in the Avalon Business Park (Madrid) and another one in Arroyo de la Vega (Alcobendas), on which it spent more than €55 million in total, according to the figures disclosed in the annual accounts of Gore Spain, the Socimi through which the fund channels its investments in our country.

The icing on the cake for GreenOak came in June this year, when it acquired the Las Mercedes Business Park from Standard Life. The property is located on the outskirts of Madrid, next to the A-2 motorway and comprises an 80,000 m2 complex with 10 buildings, of which nine are used for offices, with the tenth used for the provision of general services.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Ruth Ugalde)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Corpfin Capital Will Build New Retail Complex In Alcorcón

19 October 2016 – Inmodiario

Corpfin Capital Retail Parks, a vehicle managed by Corpfin Capital Real Estate (CCREP) has acquired a plot of land in the municipality of Alcorcón, in the Community of Madrid. The plot has a surface area of 13,501 sqm and an above-ground buildable area of 8,000 sqm. It is located on the main avenue of Ensanche Sur, a new development area in the town.

The objective of the investment vehicle is to construct a retail complex that it hopes will bring life to a neighbourhood that does not currently have any retail offering. The project forecasts an investment, including land purchase and construction costs, of approximately €11 million.

The vehicle has already signed a contract with Supermercado Simply to open a 4,000 sqm store on the site. The rest of the complex (the remaining 4,000 sqm) is still being marketed and advanced negotiations are being held with several operators.

The firm considers this project to be an important stimulus for the area, given that it expects it to create around 100 direct jobs.

Corpfin Capital Retail Parks was created with the aim of acquiring land in Spain, on which to manage, develop and construct shopping centres (Retail Parks) and to subsequently lease the assets to first rate operators.

The vehicle, which has an investment capacity of almost €45 milliion, represents a way of allowing Corpofin Capital Real Estate to diversify its business, which has been focused until now on the acquisition of prime retail premises in Spain’s main cities. In this way, the company is backing a different niche in the market, namely: retail parks.

This represents the vehicle’s second operation and its first in the Community of Madrid, following the inauguration of the Las Moruchas Retail Park in Ávila in June. (…).

Original story: Inmodiario

Translation: Carmel Drake