The US investment fund is looking for opportunities to invest in Spanish real estate and is testing the entry into the residential market in Spain, according to Adolfo Favieres, BlackRock's general manager in Spain, at the conference organised by IESE.
The company is particularly interested in the residential sector. Specifically, BlackRock is studying operations in housing for sale, student residences and new flexible housing products such as coliving.
Favieres notes that the fund has looked at investments linked to the Spanish logistics market, but these were ultimately ruled out due to unattractive returns. The company has also looked at the data centre market, but considers it more "infrastructure" than real estate.
Currently, BlackRock only has a student residence in Madrid and a hostel in Barcelona in the Spanish real estate sector. A few months ago, Favieres moved to Madrid from London, from where he will now head up real estate investments in the Spanish market.
The US investment fund established last May a division for the Spanish real estate market, for which it signed Adolfo Favieres and Jesús Moler, former executives of Barings and from Neberu Capital.
Despite not having a large portfolio of assets in Spain, the company is present in the Spanish real estate sector. In fact, BlackRock is Merlin's third largest shareholder. In 2022, the US investment manager increased its stake in the Spanish socimi by more than one percentage point to over 5%. This was the first change in Merlin's capital reported by the US investment giant in more than five years, specifically since June 2017, when its stake was limited to 3.97%.
Another of BlackRock's notable investments in Spanish real estate companies occurred with the stock market debut of Aedas Homes in October 2017. The US fund manager took a 3% stake in the developer in the early days on the stock market of the company led by David Martínez.
Blackrock's activity with Spain began in 1994, when the US company opened its first office in Madrid, although it was not until 2008, the year of the real estate crash, when it began to manage the first mandate of a Spanish pension fund. Since then, however, the company's activity has been managed from its headquarters in London.
BlackRock busca entrar en el mercado residencial en España
