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26 April 2017 – El Confidencial
Last Tuesday (18 April), the March family closed its first major sale of an entire building, in an operation that forms part of the asset sale plan that it has been immersed in for several years now. After taking the decision, in the spring of 2015, to rotate some of its property portfolio, the Mallorcan dynasty has now completed the divestment of an office building located in the elitist Madrilenian urbanisation of La Florida.
The building in question houses the headquarters of Vodafone TV. It has a surface area of 4,900 m2, spread over five floors (basement, -1, ground, 1st and 2nd) and 140 parking spaces. The telecommunications operator recently renewed its rental contract there for another 10 years.
The purchaser is the Mutualidad de la Abogacía, which has been advised by Cushman & Wakefield and which has paid €13.3 million for the building. It is the fifth property that the buyer has acquired in just over a year, after taking control of properties such as number 12 on the Madrilenian Calle O’Donnell last June.
Corporación Financiera Alba, the holding company owned by the March family, which has been advised during the operation by Aguirre Newman, valued this building on its books at €11.2 million, which means that it has managed to close the transaction at a substantial profit. In fact, this asset was the eighth most valuable in the entire portfolio of Alba Patrimonio Inmobiliario, the direct holding company of these properties, whose jewel in the crown is number 89, Paseo de la Castellana, which it acquired two years ago for €147 million.
Despite having put the “for sale” sign up over a significant number of subsidiaries and investments, until now, the March family had barely moved an inch in the real estate market. The only exception to that rule was the sale of three floors and several parking spaces on Calle Miguel Ángel, 23 to Axiare, in a complex operation handled in four parts back in February, whereby the Socimi managed to acquire the entire building.
The March family is stepping on the accelerator
The sale of Vodafone TV’s headquarters, located at numbers 3 and 5 on Calle Basauri, comes just three weeks after Artá Capital, one of the investment arms of the Mallorcan dynasty, completed its exit from Flex, in which it used to hold a 26.3% stake, for €80 million.
The March family’s manager has also put its stakes in Mecalux and Panasa up for sale; meanwhile, Corporación Financiera Alba has been reducing its stake in ACS for several years, to bring it below the 3% threshold for the first time this month; and it is finalising the sale of Clínica Baviera to the Chinese group Aier Eye.
Following this operation, the appraisal value of the real estate portfolio owned by the Mutualidad de la Abogacía amounts to €701.5 million and its book value stands at €575 million, comprising 44 assets in total.
Original story: El Confidencial (by Ruth Ugalde)
Translation: Carmel Drake