Spanish banks Popular, Santander put real estate arms on the market

Spanish banks Popular and Santander are the latest national financial institutions to put their real estate arms on the market in an effort to take advantage of the increased liquidity in the sector.

Santander and Popular have appointed PWC and KPMG respectively to sell their property subsidiaries, Altamira Real Estate and Aliseda.

Altamira is one of Spain's largest property services firms, with over €3.6 bn in assets under management.

The move follows the successful sale last week of Caixa's real estate arm to TPG for around €185 mln. TPG Capital emerged ahead of bidders Bridgepoint, Fortress and Starwood to acquire a 51% interest in Caixa bank's Servihabitat Gestión Inmobiliaria.

As part of the agreement, US-based private equity investment group TPG has taken over the management of the entire portfolio of Servihabitat as well as the Building Center unit but will not buy Servihabitat's 12,000 residential property holdings.

Parent company Caixa d'Estalvis i Pensions de Barcelona hired Morgan Stanley in the spring to sell a stake in the real estate services company.

Bankia, Spain's third-largest banking group, has recently also completed the sale of its real estate servicing arm to private equity group Cerberus for around €90 mln.

The deal involves the real estate servicing business of Bankia Habitat while the company will retain its headquarters in Madrid and Valencia as well as the asset management business. Bankia Habitat manages a €5.5 bn portfolio across the country consisting of real estate assets worth €2.9 bn and another €2.6 bn of development loans.

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.