Metrovacesa
Encyclopedia
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
property
Property
Property is any physical or intangible entity that is owned by a person or jointly by a group of people or a legal entity like a corporation...
company, headquartered in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
, which was the largest publicly-traded real estate
Real estate
In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...
developer in the Eurozone
Eurozone
The eurozone , officially called the euro area, is an economic and monetary union of seventeen European Union member states that have adopted the euro as their common currency and sole legal tender...
prior to the June 2007 creation of Unibail-Rodamco
Unibail-Rodamco
Unibail-Rodamco is a French-Dutch company, headquartered in Paris, that focuses on investment in commercial property. It is the largest commercial real estate company in Europe. The main assets managed by the company fall into three categories: shopping centres, convention centres and office...
. The company is primarily focused on the leasing
Leasing
Leasing is a process by which a firm can obtain the use of a certain fixed assets for which it must pay a series of contractual, periodic, tax deductible payments....
of a range of property in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Spain, which comprises around 80% of its portfolio.
History
The origins of Metrovacesa can be traced back to 1918 and the foundation in Madrid of the constructionConstruction
In the fields of architecture and civil engineering, construction is a process that consists of the building or assembling of infrastructure. Far from being a single activity, large scale construction is a feat of human multitasking...
firm Urbanizadora Metropolitana, which was one of three companies (Compañía Urbanizadora Metropolitana, Compañía Inmobiliaria Metropolitana and Vacesa) which merged
Mergers and acquisitions
Mergers and acquisitions refers to the aspect of corporate strategy, corporate finance and management dealing with the buying, selling, dividing and combining of different companies and similar entities that can help an enterprise grow rapidly in its sector or location of origin, or a new field or...
in 1988 to form Metropolitana Vasco Central (Metrovacesa). The interests of the three constituent companies were largely confined to residential
House
A house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...
and office property, but the newly merged entity expanded across Spain and moved into other assets such as shopping centre
Shopping mall
A shopping mall, shopping centre, shopping arcade, shopping precinct or simply mall is one or more buildings forming a complex of shops representing merchandisers, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit, along with a parking area — a modern, indoor version...
s and car park
Parking lot
A parking lot , also known as car lot, is a cleared area that is intended for parking vehicles. Usually, the term refers to a dedicated area that has been provided with a durable or semi-durable surface....
s. A merger with the housing development firm BAMI followed in 2000, and the group acquired a majority stake in Gecina
Gecina
Gecina is a residential, office, and healthcare focused real estate investment trust. Its portfolio of properties also includes shopping malls, warehouses, and logistic centers responsible for coordinating commercial businesses such as those operating in business parks...
, the largest French real estate company, in 2005.
Current activities
Metrovacesa's portfolio currently comprises a significant number of office blocks, business parkBusiness park
A business park or office park is an area of land in which many office buildings are grouped together. All of the work that goes on is commercial, not industrial or residential....
s and housing for rent, located primarily in Madrid, Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
and Île-de-France
Île-de-France (région)
Île-de-France is the wealthiest and most populated of the twenty-two administrative regions of France, composed mostly of the Paris metropolitan area....
, as well as around ten car parks, a similar number of hotel
Hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...
s and two residences for the elderly
Retirement home
A retirement home is a multi-residence housing facility intended for senior citizens. Typically each person or couple in the home has an apartment-style room or suite of rooms. Additional facilities are provided within the building, including facilities for meals, gathering, recreation, and some...
located across Spain.
Recently, the company has branched into Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
and Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, as well as London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. In April 2007 Metrovacesa made headlines by paying £1.09 bn for the 210 metre high HSBC
HSBC
HSBC Holdings plc is a global banking and financial services company headquartered in Canary Wharf, London, United Kingdom. it is the world's second-largest banking and financial services group and second-largest public company according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine...
skyscraper
Skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...
(8 Canada Square) in London's Canary Wharf
Canary Wharf
Canary Wharf is a major business district located in London, United Kingdom. It is one of London's two main financial centres, alongside the traditional City of London, and contains many of the UK's tallest buildings, including the second-tallest , One Canada Square...
complex, the biggest ever single-property deal in the UK. In a move to combat the firm's rising debt, the building was however sold back to HSBC at a £250 million loss in December 2008.
On 14 September 2007 Metrovacesa announced their purchase of the new Walbrook Square development from Legal & General
Legal & General
Legal & General Group Plc , commonly known as Legal & General, is a multinational financial services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. Its products include life insurance, general insurance, pensions and investments. It has operations in the United Kingdom, Egypt, France, Germany,...
for the sum of £240m (€350m). They planned to invest a further €1400m, and announced that all work was to be completed by 2015. Metrovacesa were to hold the rights for a 250 year lease
Lease
A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the lessee to pay the lessor for use of an asset. A rental agreement is a lease in which the asset is tangible property...
. However, after they were unable to continue paying their instalments, on 31 July 2009 they agreed to pay Legal & General £100 million in order to exit the contract.
In February 2009, following a EUR738m loss in the previous year, Metrovacesa's owners were forced to hand control to its creditor banks, swapping a 55% stake for a cancellation of EUR2.1bn of loans which it could neither repay nor refinance. In 2010 it was the largest shareholder of Gecina
Gecina
Gecina is a residential, office, and healthcare focused real estate investment trust. Its portfolio of properties also includes shopping malls, warehouses, and logistic centers responsible for coordinating commercial businesses such as those operating in business parks...
(28%).