Blackstone Group LP and Goldman Sachs Group Inc are weighing separate bids for 1,500 Spanish rental homes that are being sold by the nation’s largest real estate investment trust, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

Merlin Properties Socimi SA has asked investors to submit non-binding bids for the portfolio by Nov. 10 and a sale is expected to be agreed before the end of the year, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Spokesmen for Blackstone, Goldman Sachs and Merlin all declined to comment.

PGGM and the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) have acquired a Spanish infrastructure company for €420m.

The investors were joined by Canadian scheme OPTrust in buying Globalvia Infraestructuras from local construction company FCC and Bankia for €166m.

The group agreed to make a further payment of up to €254m, depending on certain undisclosed conditions being met.

At the annual conference of EPRA, the European Public Real Estate Association, held in Berlin on 9 September, Tim Leckie, real estate analyst at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co, told delegates that investors in European listed property companies will benefit from around two years of low interest rates, broadening rental growth and rising asset values.

“Rental growth is spreading to Germany, Spain and Ireland after appearing first in the United Kingdom,” Leckie said, “and this is very positive for the NAVs of listed property companies. The summer’s turmoil in financial markets has probably pushed back the lift-off point for interest rates or flattened the speed at which they will rise. This means that for the next 24 months or so we will have a continuation of the positive environment for the property industry: broadening rental growth and rising property values against a backdrop of historically low interest rates.”

European commercial property is set to deliver total returns of 19 per cent this year, the highest since 25 per cent was recorded in 2006.

The forecasts, produced each quarter, cover 121 European markets, focusing on the three main commercial sectors (office, retail, industrial). Retail is forecast to be the best performing sector, with returns of 22 per cent expected this year, followed by office and industrial (both at 17 per cent).
 
Despite the world economy losing some momentum in September, and concerns over the outlook for emerging markets and their impact on European economies, confidence in European real estate remains high. The low interest rate environment, ECB QE and strong investor interest are keeping commercial property yields under downward pressure. During the third quarter of 2015, yields fell in 43 of the 121 markets covered by Cushman & Wakefield’s forecasts.

U.S. private equity group Centerbridge Partners has appointed investment banks to sell Spanish property services firm Aktua, five sources familiar with the matter said.

Centerbridge is seeking to take advantage of an improvement in the Spanish property market where valuations of real estate assets are recovering after taking a hit during Spain's economic downturn.

The New York-based fund has hired Bank of America (BAC.N) and Barclays (BARC.L) to launch a sales process for the company which offers a wide range of real estate services including property maintenance, rental collection and loan management, the sources said. Bank of America and Barclays declined to comment while Centerbridge had no immediate comment.

European commercial real estate investment is at its highest level on record, with overall activity coming to more than €51.5bn in the third quarter of this year. The figure is 16% up on the same period a year ago. Annual volumes, the company said, are at €237.8bn – higher than in any previous period and just above the €234.6bn recorded in the third quarter of 2007.

On Wednesday lawyers for a Qatari investment fund, Qatar Investment Authority, handed over a bank guarantee of two million euros for a proposed scheme to build a five-star hotel in Malaga’s port. 

This sum represents two per cent of the value of the building, estimated at 100 million euros, and was accompanied by a formal request that the tender process for the works be permitted to begin. 

This was a stipulation of the ‘Ley de Puertos’ to allow the land for the construction of the hotel to be handed over - an area of 18,000 square metres situated between the cruise ship docking zone and the marina of the Club Mediterráneo. 

Hispania has acquired an 80.5 per cent stake in Bay Hotels & Leisure (BAY) for EUR123 million. BAY owns 11 vacation hotels (3,946 rooms), located in the Canary Islands, Balearic Islands, Huelva and Almería and a shopping centre located in Fuerteventura. 

The indirect real estate arm of CBRE Global Investors has acquired a €350 million pan-European logistics portfolio which will seed greater investment in the sector.

CBRE Global Investment Partners (GIP), the indirect arm of Los Angeles-based real estate investment manager CBRE Global Investors, has purchased a European logistics portfolio valued at €350 million as it looks to deepen its exposure to the sector.

The portfolio, comprising seven assets across France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, was acquired from clients of the London-based real estate asset management firm TH Real Estate

The indirect real estate arm of CBRE Global Investors has acquired a €350 million pan-European logistics portfolio which will seed greater investment in the sector.

Blackstone Group LP, after raising a record $15.8 billion for a global real estate fund, is planning to gather money for a new European property pool, said Tony James, president and chief operating officer of the world’s largest alternative-asset manager.

Non-listed real estate funds of funds recorded total returns of 8.0 per cent in 2014 – the highest since 2007 and a massive rise from 2013 when performance hit just 0.2 per cent, according to the latest figures from INREV and ANREV.

Barry Sternlicht, chairman of Starwood Capital Group, said sharp movements in stocks and a lack of liquidity makes real estate the best major market to invest in right now.

Starwood Capital, Sternlicht’s $44 billion real estate investment firm, is opting for safety by adding to its book of 40,000 apartments and 52 million square-feet of office space, he said in a television interview on "Bloomberg <GO>" with Stephanie Ruhle and David Westin.

Thor Equities has signed a contract to acquire 16 Calle Fuencarral in Madrid, a 14,300-square-foot (1,330-square-meter) mixed-use property, company executives announced today. 

Investment into the commercial real estate (CRE) market totalled nearly €56 billion in the second quarter of 2015, up 15 percent on Q2 2014, according to the latest figures from CBRE. Although the rate of year-on-year growth in investment activity has slowed slightly compared with Q1, it is still the highest Q2 total since 2007.

European banks and asset management agencies have decreased their exposure to non-core real estate by €53 billion in the second quarter from the same period in 2014, according to a Cushman & Wakefield report released today. 

That trend is expected to continue, James Webster, one of the financial service firm’s analysts, told PERE. “There is still a significant amount of deleveraging that banks will have to make over the next few years,” he said. “I don’t see anything drastically changing, apart from activity beginning to slow within the UK and Ireland and those nations that have been dealing with these problematic assets.”

While student accommodation is already a vibrant sector in the UK and Germany, increased investor interest in halls for Spain’s 1.4m university students could be just around the corner.

Banks and asset management agencies (AMA) collectively still have more than half a trillion in unwanted legacy commercial real estate loans across Europe which they are expected to wind-down and sell over the coming years, a new report shows.

Cerberus Capital Management LP was the biggest buyer of distressed real estate debt in Europe through the first nine months of the year, closing eight deals with an original face value of 7.69 billion euros ($8.6 billion), according to Cushman & Wakefield Inc.

Opportunistic funds have continued their robust fundraising activity into the third quarter of 2015, as funds that held a final close in the period raised an aggregate USD28.2 billion.

This represents 75 per cent of the total amount of capital raised by private real estate funds in Q3, and far outstrips the USD7.2 billion raised by opportunistic funds closed in Q2. Seven of the top 10 biggest funds closed in the quarter, and all of the top 10 biggest funds ever closed, target opportunistic investments.