Sareb selects Haya Real Estate to manage a portfolio worth €8,400 million

SAREB has selected Haya Real Estate as its servicer to manage and market part of its portfolio over the next two and a half years, through to mid-2022. The portfolio comprises loans and properties which, at the end of 2018, had a net book value of €8,400 million.

Haya Real Estate already manages this portfolio, although its current contract is due to end on 31 December. With the contract due to expire, Sareb launched a competitive tender process – known as Esparta – in which participants included the portfolio’s existing servicers, as well as other Spanish operators.

The new contract forms a pivotal part of Sareb’s new business strategy, announced by company CEO, Jaime Echegoyen, a few months ago and which ultimately aims to maintain or improve the value of its properties. Key cornerstones of this strategy include a new focus on new-build housing development, land planning management, litigation of unpaid loans and the opening regional offices.

To help drive this strategy forward, Sareb has designed a new servicer management model in which the servicers are primarily tasked with marketing the company’s properties. Sareb, on the other hand, will take charge of other duties that previously fell under its servicers’ remit, such as the administration of major debtors, technical management and property maintenance, land development, the marketing of “unique properties” and the conversion of financial assets into mortgaged properties.

Haya Real Estate will become the first servicer to operate under this new system, as of 1 January. This new model will then be rolled out to the rest of Sareb’s portfolio in the future.

Regarding the new contract, Jaime Echegoyen said “Sareb has taken a step forward with its business strategy that has been reworked in 2019 to ensure a greater focus on controlling information related to internal technology, streamlining the value chain and ensuring a personal approach is taken when it comes to both our properties and our clients”.

“The new management model agreed with Haya Real Estate will offer greater flexibility, increased efficiency, and will be more aligned with our business plan and our strategy to transform our portfolio, and ensure we are better-placed to tackle future challenges head-on”, the CEO of Sareb added.