The Asset Management Company from Bank Restructuring (Sareb) is managing to reduce its losses this year thanks to its social rental program, which has already revalued its assets by 350 million euros, as explained by its president, Javier Torres.
During the presentation of the social rental program that the bad bank has in Catalonia, Torres explained that after the State took control of the company in May 2022, the firm has given priority to allocating its homes to social rental for vulnerable families, which They pay an income of less than 30% of their income and that is on average 200 euros per month.
This initiative, in addition to its social impact, “helps balance accounts, reduces the degradation of assets and neighborhood conflict,” said Pau Pérez de Acha, the director of Sareb's Social Housing area. Thus, “adding people management to asset management has a positive impact on the accounts.”
Pérez explained that the company has about a hundred specialists working on its social rental program and invests an average of 4,000 euros in each home it manages, to improve its living conditions. In addition, it provides socio-labor support services to families, to help them obtain public aid and employment. Despite these expenses, the additional income from rentals that the society obtains allows them to pay the management expenses of the program, the IBI and the community of owners, so that “from losing 1,540 euros for each home that we have empty, we go on to gain 92 euros per year, an improvement of 1,632 euros per home in the ebitda” (operating profit).
Sareb, explained Javier Torres, has 13,300 homes in different social rental programs, of which 54% are in Catalonia, with 7,000 units. In Spain as a whole, Sareb directly manages 6,000 rentals, while 1,980 are in homes transferred in agreements to the autonomous communities, figures that in Catalonia are 3,201 and 1,540 respectively. In total, 28,000 people in Spain benefit from its social rental programs.
Sareb also has 3,400 homes in which people reside “who are not in a vulnerable situation” and who do not wish to join its affordable rental program (for which they would pay a rent equivalent to a third of their income), and who are in eviction process. Of these properties, 1,658 are in Catalonia. According to Pérez, who avoided using the term occupation, the company managed to ensure that in 80% of cases they end up leaving the property in a friendly manner (without police intervention) although he recalled that the judicial procedure lasts between nine months and three years.
Sareb was created in 2012, with the contribution of 50,781 million euros in real estate and bad loans to promoters of the 24 rescued savings banks. After the asset sales made in recent years, the firm recognized in June that the gross value of the assets on its balance sheet, of 26,324 million euros, is 44% higher than its market value, which is equivalent to an impairment accumulated of 11,626 million euros, which will become losses when those properties are sold. “The more we sell, the more we lose,” Torres acknowledged. The company sold 27,000 properties in 2022, of which 8,153 were homes, so with 2,361 million earned from sales, it recorded 1,506 million euros in losses.
Sareb still accumulates a debt of 30,481 million euros, 40% less than what it assumed in 2012, mainly with the State, which is lower than the value of the assets, and when it was created an expiration of 15 years was imposed. , so it would have to sell the assets and repay the debt in 2027.
Torres acknowledged that "we may miss" that deadline, so the Government will have to evaluate "either extend the life of the company for a few years or liquidate Sareb and transfer the land to Sepes", the Public Business Land Company. The part of social rent, which is not carried out by Sepes, could be transferred to the autonomous communities. “Now there is no team studying that scenario,” he said. However, Torres defended “the value of the talent we have gathered and their knowledge in social housing management, of which there is very little in Spain.” For this reason, he assured, “I would love for that experience not to be lost.
