The listed real estate company Renta Corporación will invest 30 million euros this year in the acquisition and rehabilitation of about twenty urban commercial premises that it will transform into storage units, basically in the cities of Barcelona and Madrid, although it does not rule out other locations in municipalities with more than 100,000 inhabitants. The first operations could close in the next five months, with the launch of the first premises in the Horta neighborhood, with an area of 3,000 square meters. The company will take advantage of the decrease in transaction prices that has been registered in the commercial sector, due to the closure of a significant number of establishments because of the pandemic crisis, which has increased the supply of empty spaces.
The company, based in Barcelona, incorporates this new business area aimed at individuals and freelancers in line with the diversification policy and the search for profitability, "in a growing segment in Spain," which according to sector forecasts could multiply its current capacity by fifty, highlighted the president of Renta Corporación, Luis Hernández de Cabanyes. "It is a business segment that will bring us a lot of recurrence," he said.
The real estate company has announced, coinciding with the celebration of the shareholders' meeting, that it expects to reach 12.6 million euros in profit this year, in line with the trend registered in the first quarter of the year, in which it obtained a positive result of 2.5 million euros. The results forecast for 2022 double those registered last year, about 6.9 million, to which an extraordinary 2.3 million were added from the sale of a stake in Vivenio, a listed real estate investment company (socimi), for more than 12 million euros.
The company will remain focused on logistics assets due to the high demand in the fashion, food, and online commerce segments; and on residential assets with operations in Barcelona and Madrid, mainly through Vivenio. In this regard, Luis Hernández has insisted that, in the current context with a significant rebound in inflation and a moderate increase in interest rates, the real estate market is a safe haven that can offer returns.
The divestment in Vivenio facilitated the entry of the Australian pension fund Aware into this REIT, to which it has provided liquidity, so it has about 800 million euros for new investments in residential assets, for the next three years, "but we will analyze all opportunities and they can be disbursed earlier if we deem it appropriate," said David Vila, CEO of Renta Corporación. In recent years, Vivenio has invested 1.4 billion euros and has 5,800 homes in its portfolio.
New materials and sustainability
Vila also emphasized the strategy for digitalization and the promotion of sustainability, an area that the company will boost with the investee Terra Green Living, a developer of sustainable assets. The developer has opened the commercialization of the first wooden apartment building, industrially built by the startup 011h, at number 15 Joan Maragall street in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat.
"We are going to boost Terra Green with other sustainable projects, either with the construction company 011h or with other operators in the sector, because we believe there is demand and that progressively the buyer will assume the 10% surcharge that these types of residential properties have because they will value their impact on sustainability thanks to the reduction of the carbon footprint," said Hernández.