Private-Equity Firm Blackstone, Spain’s Largest Landlord, Tries to Unload its Properties
What does it mean when Wall Street mega-landlords that bought the impaired assets after the last crash are trying to unload during the worst economic crisis on record?
With Spain in the grip of its deepest recession on record, house prices have begun to fall for the first time since 2015 on a year-over-year basis.
In a bid to buck this trend, Aliseda and Anticipa, two real-estate firms that private-equity giant Blackstone acquired in 2017 from Banco Santander, have pledged to reimburse investors up to one tenth of the sale price if the value of the properties they buy drops by more than a tenth in the three months after a deal is sealed.
Many of the 8,400 properties on offer have been sitting on the market since 2018, without finding a buyer.
Blackstone is the biggest private landlord in Spain, with some 100,000 real estate assets in the country, including a huge portfolio of impaired assets, such as defaulted mortgages and the homes that back them, and real estate-owned assets (REOs), that are controlled via dozens of companies.
It is heavily exposed to any downturn and has an obvious interest in keeping Spain’s ultra-fragile housing recovery going. That could be why it’s offering such enticing inducements to attract buyers.
The offer could also send the opposite of its intended message, giving investors the impression that some of the biggest sellers are so worried about the prospect of cascading prices in a market that was already running out of steam before Covid arrived that they’re willing to do just about anything to attract prospective buyers.
Eduard Mendiluce, chief executive of Aliseda and Anticipa, insists that the prices of the properties are “highly competitive and that now is a good time to buy a home.”
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