Tag: via celere

Vía Célere’s Revenues Doubled but its Profit Decreased by 73%

The property developer controlled by Värde Partners generated revenues of €363 million in 2019, compared to €157 million the previous year, however, its profit fell by 73% due to a drop in extraordinary income.

The house builder Vía Célere closed 2019 with a profit of €22 million euros, which represents a drop of 73% compared to the previous year.

The company attributes this decrease to a decrease in extraordinary income since the attributable profit in 2018 included non-recurring income of €86.5 million, resulting from the recognition of tax credits with the Treasury and the capitalisation of debt. Without those extraordinary items, the profit would have been €23 million higher.

Vía Célere, Aedas and Kronos Submit €120-Million Proposal to Acquire Land in Los Berrocales

4 January 2020 – The developers Aedas, Vía Célere and Kronos have launched a joint bid to acquire two million square meters of land in Los Berrocales, Madrid. The land, the largest remaining plot of land in the capital’s south, has sufficient space to build up to 5,000 homes. The three companies submitted a proposal offering to pay 60 euros per square meter to a group of small property owners.

Market watchers expect protracted negotiations for the land, however. The regional authority has yet to agree to any kind of re-subdivision and urbanisation works. Even the most optimistic projections place the beginning of construction in 2022.

Las inmobiliarias Aedas, Vía Célere y Kronos han lanzado una oferta para adquirir dos millones de metros cuadrados de terreno en Los Berrocales, Madrid. La tierra, la mayor parcela de tierra restante en el sur de la capital, tiene espacio suficiente para construir hasta 5,000 casas. Las tres compañías presentaron una propuesta que ofrecía pagar 60 euros por metro cuadrado a un grupo de pequeños propietarios.

Sin embargo, los observadores del mercado esperan negociaciones prolongadas por las tierras. La autoridad regional aún tiene que aprobar cualquier tipo de obras de reparcelación y la urbanización. Incluso las proyecciones más optimistas sitúan el comienzo de la construcción en 2022.

Original Story: Idealista

Translation/Summary: Richard D. Turner

 

Aedas, Vía Célere and Kronos Join Together to Acquire La Fortuna, a 90-Hectare Plot of Land in Madrid

26 August 2019

Aedas, Kronos and Vía Célere joined together to acquire La Fortuna, a 900,000-m2 parcel of land to the southeast of Madrid. The property is located in the planned development of Los Berrocales and was sold by  Proinsa at a public auction for nearly 46 million euros.

The three developers bid jointly in the auction, which was held last month. The asset has more than 90 hectares of land and enough buildable land to develop about 2,500 flats, making it the most significant sale of land in Madrid in recent times.

Aedas is controlled by the American firm Castlelake; the US-based Värde Partners controls Vía Célere, and Kronos is Spain’s Kronos Homes’ developer.

Original Story: Cinco Días – Alfonso Simón Ruiz

Adaptation/Translation: Richard D. K. Turner

President of Vía Célere, Juan Antonio Gómez Pintado, Resigns

2 July 2019 – Richard D. K. Turner

Juan Antonio Gómez-Pintado, the Chairman and CEO of Vía Célere, announced his resignation from the company.  The decision came shortly after the firm completed its merger with Aelca. The current CFO of the group, Ignacio Morales, will take his place as CEO, while Värde Partners’ point man for the European real estate market, Francisco Milone, will assume the presidency.

Vía Célere is a benchmark for the sector, with a gross asset value of €2.2 billion, with a land bank of more than 24,000 units and more than 2,500 homes delivered. It has a presence throughout much of Spain, including Madrid (38%), Malaga (22%), Barcelona (10%), Seville (8%), and Valencia (6%), among others.

Original Story: El Confidencial – Ruth Ugalde

 

CaixaBank Creates a Subsidiary to Finance Loans to Property Developers

17 June 2019 – Eje Prime

CaixaBank has created a new subsidiary to finance loans to property developers. The entity will operate under the brand CaixaBank Real Estate&Homes and will seek stable agreements with established property developers such as Neinor, Aedas Homes and Vía Célere, amongst others.

In 2018, CaixaBank financed 581 real estate projects lending €2.6 billion in total, up by 13% YoY. Moreover, 84% of the developments financed by the bank last year corresponded to projects involving less than 50 homes.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Sabadell’s Board Evaluates 3 Offers Amounting to c. €850M For its Property Developer

28 May 2019 – El Confidencial

On Monday, Banco Sabadell received three binding offers for its property developer, Sabadell Desarrollos Inmobiliarios, from the funds Cerberus, Oaktree and a third unknown candidate, amounting to between €800 million and €900 million.

The board of directors of the Catalan entity chaired by Josep Oliu now needs to decide whether to accept one of them and thereby pave the way for the creation of a new major player in the Spanish property developer sector to compete alongside the likes of Neinor, Metrovacesa, Vía Célere and Aedas.

Oaktree has been the favourite in the bidding for the last few months given its good relationship with Sabadell and with the property developer itself, with which it already operates at least one joint venture. It would represent the US investor’s first operation of its kind in Spain, where it currently has a small platform with just 20 employees.

Nevertheless, Cerberus has been gaining ground. Unlike Oaktree, the US giant already has a property development platform in Spain, Inmoglacier, to which it wants to supply new land (which SDin owns). Cerberus could also benefit from synergies between the two firms.

Meanwhile, the identity of the third candidate remains confidential, but possible contenders include Habitat (Bain Capital), Aedas and the Canadian fund CPPIB, which were all reported to be evaluating the purchase during the preliminary phase.

Initially, Sabadell was hoping to receive more than €1 billion for its property developer, but following uncertainty in the sector in recent months and the sale of several assets, it will have to accept a more modest price if a sale is to be agreed.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Jorge Zuloaga)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Locare Buys a Rental Home Development from Vía Célere

15 May 2019 – El Economista

In just one year, Locare Real Estate has become one of the main drivers of affordable rental housing in Spain, with a portfolio of more than 700 homes at different stages of completion. To this end, the firm has just signed an agreement with the property developer Vía Célere to acquire one of its developments in the Madrilenian town of Valdemoro.

Locare is already working on another development in the same town and together the two estates will contain 180 homes and will involve an investment of €23 million. The homes will be adapted to Locare’s style, which means that they will be suitable for rental.

This operation represents the first step by the property developer led by Juan Antonio Gómez-Pintado into the rental market and sees the firm follow in the footsteps of Aedas Homes and Metrovacesa.

In its first year of life, Locare has already disbursed €90 million of the €120 million in funding that it raised and has launched five other developments in Móstoles, Torrelodones, Collado Villalba and Alcalá de Henares, containing almost 1,000 units in total. The firm is already working on the launch of a second fund to continue its work in this field.

Original story: El Economista (by Alba Brualla)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Marathon Puts the Bahía Azul Shopping Centre in Málaga up for Sale for c. €30M

11 April 2019 – Idealista

The US fund Marathon has put the Bahía Azul shopping centre in Málaga up for sale for an asking price of between €25 million and €30 million.

Marathon has owned the centre since 2016, when it acquired it for €18.5 million, and has appointed Savills-Aguirre Newman to manage the sale, which will begin after Easter.

Bahía Azul, which was inaugurated in November 2008, has a surface area of 13,827 m2, divided into four retail spaces, plus a 9,445 m2 underground parking lot. It is located opposite Guadalmar in the same complex as Ikea, and is home to high-profile brands including Worten, Conforama, Schmidt, Prenatal, McDonald’s, Visionlab, Carrión and Maisons du Monde.

Marathon Asset Management has headquarters in New York, London and Singapore. It is one of the minority shareholders of the property developer Vía Célere, which is controlled (75%) by Värde.

Original story: Idealista (by Custodio Pareja)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Property Developers are Building 18,000+ Homes in Andalucía

18 March 2019 – ABC Sevilla

The real estate market in Andalucía is booming, and in a good way. According to the latest figures from the Ministry of Development, 12,363 permits were granted in 2017 for the construction of new homes, compared with the record before the burst of the bubble of 156,483 in 2006. Construction activity is responding to real demand in the market and is featuring some new players that are planning to build thousands of new homes in the region over the next three years.

Two markets

The investors, which include international funds and local property developers alike, differentiate between two markets – the eastern (Málaga) and the western (Sevilla) – the former accounts for 70% of new developments.

Aedas Homes currently leads the regional ranking by number of homes planned and investments forecast in the autonomous region. The property developer controlled by the US fund Castlelake plans to invest almost €1.3 billion in the region in the construction of 5,150 homes, primarily in the provinces of Málaga (2,600 homes) and Sevilla (1,800).

It is followed by Neinor Homes, which owns a portfolio of 29 plots for the construction of 3,628 homes; Metrovacesa, which has 2,300 homes in its Andalucían portfolio at various stages of completion; and Vía Célere, controlled by another US fund Värde, which is building 1,975 homes across 21 developments.

Meanwhile, ASG Homes has buildable land in Andalucía for the construction of 1,700 homes; Habitat Inmobiliaria, owned by the US investment fund Bain Capital, is working on the construction of 15 developments containing 1,621 homes; and the Sevillan property developer Insur is working on 17 residential developments comprising 1,136 homes at various stages of completion.

Finally, Q21 Real Estate, the property developer created from the alliance of the US fund Baupost and the owners of the former Pinar group, is also constructing almost 500 homes in the region, bringing the total number of homes under construction to more than 18,000.

Original story: ABC Sevilla (by Encarna Freire)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Industrialised Construction: Vía Célere Follows in Aedas’s Footsteps

13 March 2019 – Merca2

Vía Célere is going to be the first property developer to build an industrialised development of multi-family homes. Aedas has already paved the way with the model, but in its case, the properties were single-family homes.

The company led by Juan Antonio Gómez-Pintado is going to launch its first project of this kind in Boadilla del Monte (Madrid) and expects to finish the work within seven months. That would represent a time saving of one year compared to the normal construction period for such a development, thanks to the employment of industrialised systems.

Specifically, whilst the underground work is going on at the site of the new development (which is expected to take three or four months), the 50 modules that will comprise the first 17-home building will be manufactured off-site, in parallel. It will take just three weeks to install those modules and the last two months will be spent joining the facilities and the façades so that the homes are ready for delivery at the end of month seven.

Moreover, the firm is planning to build a 26-home development using the same industrialised system, also in Boadilla. In the future, Vía Célere aims to industrialise 30% of its future developments.

Original story: Merca2 (by Carlos Lospitao)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake