EXCLUSIVE: IBA Capital Partners seals major Barcelona buy

IBA Capital Partners has acquired the El Corte Inglés department store on Barcelona’s main square in the largest single asset transaction completed so far this year in Spain, PropertyEU can reveal.

IBA Capital Partners, founded by Jesús Valderrama and Thierry Julienne, two directors of Abedo Asset Management, and Sergio García of the Swiss Batex multi-family office, has clinched the €100 mln acquisition of No. 23, Plaza Catalunya, one of only three retail buildings on the Catalan capital’s main square. The deal was closed on an all-equity basis.

Located on the corner with The Ramblas and refurbished in the early 2000s, the iconic 8,000 m2 asset was bought in a sale-and-leaseback with El Corte Inglés, which is the sole tenant of the seven-storey building.

The transaction is understood to be the first real estate asset disposal ever to be carried out by El Corte Inglés, Spain’s leading department store operator.

El Corte Inglés has a total of 83 department stores on The Iberian Peninsula as well as 39 hypermarkets.

As part of the deal, IBA Capital Partners, acting on behalf of its clients, has created a special purpose vehicle with tax-efficient Socimi status – the Spanish REIT – that acquired the asset.

IBA Capital Partners was advised by lawyers Gomez Acebo y Pombo.

The acquisition is the first to be carried out by IBA Capital Partners as part of a €500 mln investment spree in Spain. The company said it has received a number of instructions from private investors, largely from Western Europe and South America, to invest between €400 and €500 mln in the Spanish property market.

‘We are about to close two more deals for our separate account clients,’ Thierry Julienne told PropertyEU. ‘The timing is perfect to invest in Spain on an all-equity basis. The banking sector is not in good shape and we can take advantage of the limited competition in the market,’ he added.

IBA Capital Partners, which has offices in Madrid, Paris, Freiburg and in Mexico, will focus on the purchase of retail and office buildings in Madrid and Barcelona, added Sergio Garcia of IBA. ‘There is strong interest from South American investors who wish to take advantage of Spain's market situation by investing in core assets which will generate capital gains when the market recovers.'

Spain has seen very little investment activity in the first six months of the year but there is growing evidence that more and more foreign investors are looking back at the market in search of higher yields. International investors including Meyer Bergman, Union Investment and Deka Immobilien have recently made a timid comeback in Spain, while AXA Real Estate has pulled off a €172 mln acquisition with local authority Generalitat de Catalunya.

The French asset manager acquired a portfolio of up to 13 government-let office buildings in Barcelona, its first office acquisition in Spain since the onset of the financial crisis six years ago.