TH Real Estate, TPG Real Estate and Partners Group announced the formation of the Southern European Value-Add mandate (SEVA), an investment vehicle focused on retail investments in Southern Europe on behalf of their clients. SEVA has been initially seeded with three high-quality retail assets located in Spain and Italy valued at over €250m, and will evaluate additional investment opportunities across Italy, Spain and Portugal.

The European commercial real-estate market is shifting, with the hottest cities cooling off as investors’ interest in other locations grows.

Real-estate markets throughout Europe saw investors pile in following the 2008 financial crisis. With the European Central Bank and the Bank of England pushing interest rates to historic lows, real-estate returns have become increasingly attractive to investors frustrated by tiny yields in the bond market. The cheap money the central banks were pumping into their economies also fueled the demand for property.

US private investment fund Oaktree has bought a €430m non-performing loan portfolio of residential mortgages and SME loans in Spain from Deutsche Bank’s local subsidiary, according to Spanish media.

Hispania Activos Inmobiliarios SOCIMI has acquired a plot to build two office buildings in Madrid for EUR32 million. The plot is located in the Campo de las Naciones office area, in Vía de los Poblados, 1, next to the Cristalia Business Park.

UBS Asset Management has invested in Spanish real estate on behalf of Italian insurer Poste Vita and another unnamed client.

France-based budget hotel group B&B Hotels has continued its international expansion with the acquisition of Spanish economy hotel chain Sidorme. B&B is aiming to have 400 hotels in operation in the near future, following its acquisition by French private-equity firm PAI Partners.

Investment in Spanish commercial property rose to €7.4bn in 3Q this year and the full-year total is likely to reach €9.5bn.

Spanish property group Merlin Properties has bought Saba’s logistics business, which owns five logistics parks, for €115m, according to local press reports.

Prime office yields in Spain’s capital have closed the spread over Italy’s Milan for just the third time since 1991 and investors are likely to continue favouring Madrid, pushing its yield premium further into negative territory, research house Capital Economics predicts.

Spanish bank Sabadell plans to convert Solvia, one of the country’s largest holders of foreclosed homes, into a realtor in order to benefit from the continued resurgence in the property market, according to press reports.

Spain’s economic recovery is slowing but the positive outlook for industrial rental growth remains on track and rents will grow an average 3.5% a year to the end of 2019.

Retailer El Corte Inglés has sold its department store in northern Madrid to Spanish property firm Monthisa Real Estate for €150m in a sale-and-leaseback deal, according to press reports.

Investors in student housing assets are starting to shift their emphasis into mainland Europe, with countries on the continent seeing a 21% year-on-year growth in investment volumes as of Q2 2016, reaching a total of $1.8 billion.

As the Spanish economy is continuing to improve, record low government bonds have made commercial real estate an attractive investment. This, in turn, has made SOCIMIs – real estate investments trusts – increasingly important.

Spain, 2nd country in the world for UNESCO Heritage, 3rd most visited country in the world and the 2nd in term of international tourism spending, has set a new record for tourists, with 68.1 million visitors in 2015, a 4.7% increase from 2014 according to the National Institute of Statistics. Tourism contributes roughly to 11% of the country GDP and created 25% of the new jobs registered in Spain last year.

Terror attacks in countries including France, Egypt, Tunisia and Turkey have made holidaymakers increasingly cautious, with Spain in particular benefiting from increased tourist numbers.

Rockspring has bought two Spanish theatres for €58m for its TransEuropean Property Limited Partnership VI (TEP VI). The fund will co-own the Teatro Coliseum and Teatro Lope de Vega on Madrid’s Gran Via with Stage Entertainment.

A fund focused on Spain managed by ActivumSG Capital Management is investing EUR82 million to acquire and develop a 2.2-hectare site in Alcalá de Henares, the historic city within commuting distance of Madrid.

Spanish listed property company Ayco has bought the Hotel Byblos on the Costa del Sol coast in southern Spain for €60m and plans to completely rebuild the property and reposition the iconic luxury hotel, according to local media.

A fund managed by ActivumSG Capital Management has added to its portfolio of Spanish shopping centres by purchasing three properties from Klépierre for EUR61 million.