Bolonia Real Estate is a real estate company set up by Endesa in July 2005 to bring a new management model to its property assets, based on maximising efficiency in usage and value generation. Wholly owned by Endesa, Bolonia Real Estate, S.L. is directly responsible for the group’s real estate activity in Spain, while it delegates Latin American activities in this field to Inmobiliaria Manso de Velasco Ltda, a company fully owned by Enersis.
Its portfolio of land under management is over 160 million square m² in Spain and Latin America. This sizeable volume makes Bolonia a key player in the Spanish real estate market.
Through these companies, Endesa promotes regeneration of industrial areas housing idle electrical installations and promotes the value of its real-estate assets, through the transformation of land into buildable areas, management of own or leased buildings, and implementation of development models creating sustainable value in land with high environmental worth. This last objective is carried out through the Endesa Natural Surroundings programme (Endesa Entornos Naturales).
A number of company-wide projects were launched in 2009, aimed at identifying land with value-enhancement prospects. Specifically, 18 new land parcels with development potential and economic viability were added to the portfolio of assets under management. At the end of the year this portfolio included over 66 assets, which are continually monitored in terms of their potential for urban development. The Espacio project was also launched during the year to rationalise rental office space and unlock value at offices owned by Endesa in Spain.
Despite the recession hitting the real estate market, transactions worth Euro 31.3 million were completed during the year, of which Euro 9.9 million corresponded to transactions carried out in Latin America.
In Spain, highlights include the sale of land belonging to the former thermal plant in Malaga, located in the Playa de la Misericordia area, for Euro 12.5 million. This amount comes on top of the Euro 120 million invoiced in 2007 and relates to urban developments carried out by Bolonia Real Estate during the year.
In Latin America, despite the weakness of the Chilean real estate market and thanks to the restructuring of the Commercial Plan and other initiatives carried out at the Enea Business Park (55% owned by Inmobiliaria Manso de Velasco), sales of land parcels associated with this project totalled Euro 9.3 million (11.97 hectares). Today, 58.1% of the project is still available for sale, the equivalent to 605.9 hectares. At the same business park, 300 hectares of agricultural land has been requalified as residential/industrial land. This process is in the final stages of approval. Lastly, divestments of smaller assets were also made by Coelce and Ampla (Brazil), Codensa (Colombia) for an amount of Euro 0.7 million.
December 2009 also saw the divestment of 45% of the financial stake held in Neinver Bolonia S.L., owner of 186,000 square metres of buildable land in the Fachada Marítima Levante area of Palma de Mallorca. The capital gain generated in 2009 was Euro 15.8 million, in addition to the gain of Euro 185 million obtained in 2006.
Work was also completed on the new SALT headquarters in Girona and on the employment centre in Palma de Mallorca. While demolition and zoning work continued on the land located at Son Molines, also in Palma de Mallorca.