Lender Banco Sabadell is considering the sale of its Solvia property arm due to strong appetite for Spanish real estate on the part of international investors.
Lender Banco Sabadell is considering the sale of its Solvia property arm due to strong appetite for Spanish real estate on the part of international investors.
CEO Jaume Guardiola confirmed that the bank is testing the waters for a potential sale of the unit which reported housing sales of 12,615 so far this year.
'The sale would be carried out to take advantage of an opportunity in the market,' commented Guardiola during the presentation of the bank's quarterly results. 'This is just an analysis of our options,' he said, adding that it is not yet certain that the unit will be eventually put up for sale.
Sabadell is the latest Spanish bank to consider a sale of its real estate arm in an effort to take advantage of the increased liquidity in the sector. Santander and Banco Popular have recently appointed PwC and KPMG respectively to sell their property subsidiaries, Altamira Real Estate and Aliseda.
Earlier this year Bankia agreed to cede management of its real estate business to a unit of Cerberus Capital Management while Caixa's real estate arm was sold to TPG for around €185 mln.
In early September, US investor Kennedy Wilson teamed up with Värde Partners to purchase the real estate arm of lender Catalunya Bank for some €40 mln. The two investors emerged ahead of 25 bidders to acquire CatalunyaCaixa Inmobiliaria, the manager of some €8.7 bn of assets in Spain.
