Värde-Controlled Dospuntos Acquires Vía Célere for €90 Million

Juan Antonio Gómez Pintado to be chairman and managing director of combined company. The acquisition enables continued growth through operational excellence and the integration of development and construction activities. Värde remains majority shareholder

MADRID – Dospuntos and Vía Célere today announced an agreement for Dospuntos, the real estate development company, to acquire Vía Célere, a Spanish development and construction company for 90 million euro.

The transaction unites two strong homebuilders in Spain and positions the resulting group on an accelerated growth path. The new company will focus on providing integrated services in this sector as well as strengthening its industrialization and energy efficiency processes — areas in which Vía Célere has an extensive track record as a pioneer. The combined company will operate under the trade name of Vía Célere and own a land portfolio of over 1,000,000 square meters.

With a focus on increasing its presence in the Madrid and Barcelona markets, Vía Célere, which is owned by Juan Antonio Gómez Pintado, will integrate all its land portfolio, real estate development activities and new construction currently under way in Spain with Dospuntos. Dospuntos portfolio includes land that will position the new combined company for continued development well into the future.

Currently the President of both Asprima (Madrid developers association) and APCE (Spain’s national association of developers), Mr. Gómez Pintado will become both chairman of the board of directors and managing director of the combined company, taking over from Javier Eguidazu in this position, who will continue to work with Värde Partners in an advisory capacity.

Tim Mooney, Global Co-Head of Real Estate for Värde Partners commented, “Since leading the restructuring of Grupo San Jose, we have made significant strides in streamlining Dospuntos real estate business and positioning it for growth in the recovering Spanish residential market. Today’s acquisition is consistent with and further accelerated that growth. Juan Antonio and his team have a first class track record in delivering over 12,000 high quality homes in the Spanish market both through Agofer and most recently Via Célere. We are excited that with his operational excellence and deep sector experience Juan Antonio will lead the company going forward.”

Tim Mooney added, “We thank Javier for leading and positioning the company through this transaction. He has done a fantastic job over the past 24 months first in advising on our acquisition and later restructuring the business and strengthening the Dospuntos portfolio of land. Without his efforts, today’s acquisition of Via Célere would not have been possible.”

Vía Célere was advised by from IREA and Uría. Dospuntos was advised by Deloitte and Garrigues.

About Dospuntos:
Dospuntos is a new generation real estate development company resulting from the insolvency and restructuring of Grupo San Jose, the predecessor parent company. Värde acquired a stake in Grupo San Jose via the acquisition of distressed debt originally issued to fund the group’s leveraged buy-out of Parquesol in 2006, the height of the Spanish housing market. The Värde-led restructuring saw the spin-off and wind down of non-core assets and activities and the re-launch of the residential development business under the name Dospuntos.

About Via Célere:
Vía Célere was founded in 2007 by Mr. Juan Antonio Gómez Pintado to focus on international residential development following his sale of Agofer, a Spain focused residential developer, in 2006, when this company was delivering 600 dwellings per year. Via Célere re-entered the Spanish residential market following the onset of the Spanish housing crisis. Since then, it has developed and delivered 880 units and has additional 1,000 units under production or in land ready to be developed.
In 2011 the Vía Célere Foundation was created in order to foster innovation in buildability under the standards of sustainability and energy efficiency. Today, all developments undertaken by the company boast the highest energy rating (A). In 2015, the group launched Conspace, a company specialized in industrialized construction, with the objective of innovating in methodologies and technologies that provide competitive advantages in the final quality of the dwellings and savings in construction times.

About Värde Partners:
Värde Partners is a $12 billion global alternative investment firm that employs a credit-oriented, value-based approach to investing across a broad array of geographies, segments and asset types, including real estate, corporate credit, mortgages, specialty finance, transportation and infrastructure. The firm sponsors and manages a family of private investment funds with a global investor base that includes foundations and endowments, pension plans, insurance companies, other institutional investors and private clients. Now in its third decade, Värde employs 250 people with main offices in Minneapolis, London and Singapore and additional offices including Madrid and Barcelona.