In recent weeks, the Spanish promoter sector has been through a flurry of activity. After closing the purchase of Neinor Homes 10 percent of Habitat Inmobiliaria, a deal that includes taking charge of all its assets, the shareholder dance is livelier than ever: Castlelake, the largest shareholder of Aedas Homes, wants to sell its stake, and Värde Partners, the majority investor in Vía Célere, is exploring options to bring in fresh capital. All this unfolds while Carlos Slim maintains a delicate balance in Metrovacesa together with Banco Santander and BBVA.
Ahead of 2014, in a country where the development industry had been ravaged, a group of funds, mostly American, began buying land across Spain to form new promoter platforms after nearly all the precrash firms disappeared. Castlelake founded Aedas Homes, Lone Star and Värde Partners did the same with Neinor Homes and Vía Célere, while Santander and BBVA agreed to re-found Metrovacesa.
These funds, with a distinctly opportunistic profile, carried a clear investment playbook: build the company, put it to work, list it, and harvest multimillion euro gains. Listing success came for Aedas, Neinor, and Metrovacesa at the final moment, but not for Vía Célere. Lone Star was the only one to reap sizable profits. Ten years later, the ownership mix of these companies remains largely unchanged. This is the central issue haunting Spain’s major promoters in 2024, which still command less than 10 percent of the market share: the funds have exhausted their run and there is no obvious successor in sight.
Funds with no succession
With their tenure capped and the possibility of an IPO exit on the table, Värde began an orderly wind down at Vía Célere, advancing the development of its land while throttling new acquisitions and after first seeking to merge or sell the company. Reportedly, the fund hired two investment banks to structure a new vehicle that could unwind the old platform and restart a fresh investment phase in the promoter.
In parallel, Castlelake has turned to London to find a buyer for Aedas Homes, a mandate that marks another attempt that dates back more than a year with no success yet. The complication is clear: as a listed company, any buyer would need to launch a takeover bid for the entire promoter.
Neinor and its anticipation
Neinor has stood out for anticipating the market’s new realities. In 2022, Stoneshield joined its capital, a fund founded by former Lone Star executives Juan Pepa and Felipe Morenés who helped in the company’s creation and IPO. Under the leadership of Borja García-Egotxeaga, Neinor sketched a strategic plan to finish developing the lands on its balance sheet and to channel future investments through coinvestment with financial partners to build new projects.
In this way Neinor foresaw a trend of promoters with leaner balance sheets operating as investment management platforms for various funds. It sealed alliances with the investment arm of AXA, with Orion, and with Urbanitae, while the most significant recent collaboration was with Bain Capital to take over the management of Habitat Inmobiliaria’s assets.
Metrovacesa and Slim
Against this backdrop, Metrovacesa stands out as the unusual case with a clearer path to leadership change. Banco Santander controls about half of the company, Carlos Slim holds roughly 22 percent, and BBVA owns about 21 percent. The Mexican magnate has expressed a desire to acquire the whole promoter, as he has done before with Realia and FCC. The main obstacle so far has been the market price of the shares, with lenders valuing the stock higher on their balance sheets than the current price, making a deal that would require recognizing losses difficult.
Over the months, Metrovacesa’s stock has risen, narrowing the gap with the price seen by BBVA. If Slim can reach an accord with the bank, his stake would exceed 30 percent, triggering a mandatory offer and prompting another negotiation with Ana Botín’s group, a final push that at this moment remains uncertain.