The investment giant Blackstone has already found a buyer for the office buildings it owns in Plaça de les Glòries, on the upper floors of the shopping center owned by the Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield group. The American fund hired consultants Savills Aguirre Newman and CBRE a few months ago to put this asset on the market, in an operation that is part of its usual asset rotation policy.
Blackstone became the owner of this property in 2018, after launching a public takeover bid (OPA) for the REIT Hispania, in an operation that valued this Spanish real estate group at close to 2,000 million. Hispania, in turn, had bought the Glòries complex in 2014 from General Electric Real Estate.
At the time, Hispania paid 40 million euros for this asset, but now the figure has tripled, since, according to the consulted sources, IBA Capital will pay 120 million to Blackstone. When Hispania announced the operation seven years ago, there was talk of the purchase of 18,500 square meters of office space, and now IBA has announced the acquisition of approximately 21,500 square meters distributed among three buildings. These properties have a facade on Gran Via, on Ciutat de Granada street and on Avenida Diagonal, since the part facing Plaça de les Glòries is occupied by the shopping center.
IBA Capital emphasizes that 85% of the office complex's surface area is occupied, by companies such as Sage, Kin, Kyocera or Gore-Tex and also by the Barcelona City Council, which is one of the historical tenants of the building, built in 1995.
This Spanish real estate manager has made this investment in alliance "with an institutional investor from the Middle East," although their identity has not been revealed. This is the second investment that IBA has made in Barcelona: the group also owns the large premises occupied by Primark at the confluence of Plaça Catalunya with La Rambla. Founded by Thierry Julienne and Jesús Valderrama, IBA Capital defines itself as an independent real estate fund manager that makes investments jointly with other funds. Since its inception in 2013, it has carried out operations valued at 2,000 million, with a portfolio totaling 300,000 square meters of leasable area, including offices, corporate headquarters, and emblematic commercial premises.
According to the firm, the purchase of the Glòries complex is part of its strategy to invest in "high-quality assets in consolidated locations" with a "moderate risk-return ratio."
For the director of the office segment at Savills Aguirre Newman in Barcelona, Carlos Bajo, this operation "highlights the rapid recovery of the investment market" in the Catalan capital, "with a clear commitment to the 22@ district, where 94% of the total volume has been transacted" in the first quarter of the year.
According to the consultancy CBRE, during the first quarter of the year, eleven large transactions have been closed, totaling an investment of 441 million euros. This figure represents a 5% growth compared to the same quarter of 2020, just when the pandemic had just begun and the market was not yet aware of the crisis that was coming. 45% corresponds to investments in office buildings, both operational and under construction, and 50% in properties intended for student residences or rental housing. The 22@ has concentrated the operations, with investments made by funds such as DWS, Commerzbank, Metropolis or VStudent.