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52 // iberian.propery / 2017
dossier// ISSUE: TOP IBERIAN Investors
When all winds
are favourable
With the economy showing clear signs of growth and the property market displaying
strong fundamentals, Portugal continues to attract the attention of new investors,
with extremely diverse profiles and interest in a wide variety of assets.
powered by:
CBRE Portugal
In a context of great economic optimism and strong capital markets,
gone are the dayswhen Portugal, alongwith Italy, Greece and Spain, was
included under the derogatory epithet “
PIGS
”.
Portugal currentlybenefits from the global scenario of historically lowpublic
debt interest rates and high liquidity, with real estate standing out as one
of themost attractive investment options. However, investment in Portugal
has only benefitted from this movement since Troika left the country in the
middle of 2013, in other words, much later than Europe in general, where
this new investment cycle in commercial real estate began in 2010.
The favourable global climate has been complemented by the gradual
growth of the Portuguese economy and a reduction in the country’s public
debt, currentlydisplaying the highest confidence levels since the beginning
of this indicator (20 years ago). The Portuguese economy’s negative cycle
reversed in the last quarter of 2013 and the country only initiated positive
annual GDP growth in 2014. It was also in 2014 that the unemployment rate
started to decrease annually. At themoment, the scenario is promising. The
GDP growth rate in the first quarter of 2017 was 2.8% compared with the
same period last year and is expected to grow 2.4% for the year (above the
1.9% average forecast by the European Union), while the unemployment
rate continues to drop (9.9% forecast for 2017 vs 16.2% in 2013).
In the first years of this investment cycle, namely 2014 and 2015, the main
operations involved the sale of several assets and portfolios of assets in
credit default held by banks or corporations, leading to the entry of major
players with an Opportunistic and Value-Added profile. Investors such as
Blackstone and Lone Star, both of NorthAmerican origin, stood out at the
time and were undeniably the “
Early Birds
” in our country. The disposal of
assetswith nonperforming loans led investment in commercial real estate
in 2015 to reach a record value of €2.100 million.
Main Economic Indicators
2016 2017 (F) 2018 (F)
GDP
1.4% 2.4% 1.4%
Fixed Investment
-0.1% 4.8% 2.1%
Unemployment Rate
11.1% 9.9% 9.1%
Government Budget (% of GDP)
-2.0% -1.9% -1.8%
Source: Oxford Economics