Barings Real Estate Advisers has acquired a logistics unit in Spain from Deka Immobilien for €17.6m. The real estate investment manager said the 29,000sqm class A warehouse, in Zaragoza, is fully let to Eroski, a national supermarket chain, until 2021.

Colonial Group has launched a takeover attempt of rival Spanish-listed property company Axiare Patrimonio. A takeoever would lift Colonial’s asset value to €10bn and consolidate its standing as a landlord of prime office assets in Paris, Madrid and Barcelona. 

Meridia Capital Partners has tapped its third fund to buy the Barnasud shopping centre in Barcelona in a €35m deal. The firm said it plans to carry out a €7m capital expenditure programme in the asset, which was built in 1995 by food retailer Caprabo and sold to Unibail in 2002.

HNA Group Co.’s precarious grip on a $2.2 billion Spanish hotel company is in doubt as a mountain of debt comes due and China puts the squeeze on its most prolific acquirers. The Chinese conglomerate, whose assets include a quarter of Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc., owns about 30 percent of Madrid-based NH Hotel Group SA. But HNA is in Spanish limbo. 

Copenhagen and Madrid will join the ranks of Berlin, Frankfurt, and Munich as the top cities for real estate investment and development in 2018, according to Emerging Trends in Real Estate® Europe 2018. The annual forecast, published jointly by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and PwC, is based on the opinions of over 800 real estate professionals in Europe, including investors, developers, lenders, agents, and consultants.

European logistics is a market real estate lenders cannot afford to ignore, but it has its challenges.

Liberbank, the eighth-largest bank in Spain by market value, has sold a €602 million non-performing property loan portfolio to Bain Capital and Oceanwood.

The landscape for European real estate debt funds has changed over the past five years as investors have sought to diversify. The top five private Europe-focused funds raised this year reflect what has become a substantially larger industry and suggest a broader range of target deals for debt funds.

Liberbank has agreed to sell its real estate portfolio to a fund managed by Bain Capital for €750 million ($885 million).

TH Real Estate has acquired the hypermarket premises at L'Aljub Shopping Centre in Elche on behalf of the Southern European Value-Add (SEVA) investment vehicle, from Eroski for €18.7m.

Spain tops the 2017 edition of the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2017, The World Economic Forum global rankings for the second time. France followed in second and Germany (third), Japan (fourth, gaining five places), the United Kingdom (fifth), the United States (sixth, losing two places), Australia (seventh), Italy (eighth), Canada (ninth, up one) and Switzerland (10th, losing four places).

US asset management giants Blackstone and Brookfield have reportedly made offers to buy Spanish Banco Sabadell's hotel arm, HI Partners.

On Sunday 1 October, Catalonia held a controversial referendum for independence. The vote was deemed unconstitutional by the Spanish Constitutional Court and the central government tried to prevent it from taking place by ordering police and security force reinforcements to seize ballots and close polling locations.

Tristan Capital Partners’ European Property Investors Special Opportunities fund has sold a portfolio of seven Spanish retail properties to private equity firm MDSR Investments for €149m.

AEW announces, on behalf of its Europe Value Investors Fund (“EVI” or the “Fund”), that it has acquired the Calle de Francisco Silvela 106 office building in Madrid from a private investor for c. €30mn. 

Spain’s biggest student housing provider has sold all of its real estate assets to AXA Investment Managers–Real Assets and an unnamed Dutch institutional investor, while selling its operations to Greystar. The sale by Resa of 37 student halls marks AXA IM-RA’s entry into the European student accommodation market.

Neinor Homes has just submitted to the CNMV (the Spanish stock regulator) a relevant fact to communicate the acquisition of three fully permitted land plots. Neinor Homes closed the acquisition of a fully permitted land plot in Valencia with a buildable area of 24,000m2 suitable for the development of more than 200 units. The asset is located in Benicalap district, a consolidated residential area of the city.

Neinor Homes has submitted a relevant fact to the CNMV (the Spanish stock regulator) to communicate the closing of a portfolio acquisition of a fully permitted land portfolio in Málaga, valued in EUR 68m, suitable for the development of more than 800 units and with a 27% projected gross margin, well above the Company targets.

Traditionally, there has been a common belief that in any real estate market recovery, distressed funds are the first to arrive and, once these start packing, core funds follow. In Spain right now, the core funds are currently quite active, with transactions completed at sub-3 percent cap rates – record lows for the country. Are the distressed funds leaving the country, then? Definitely not. If anything, they are accelerating their activity

AEW announces that it has completed the acquisition of a high street retail asset in downtown Madrid on behalf of the Europe City Retail Fund for c.€50 million, marking the Fund’s second acquisition in the Spanish market.