GreenOak is bullish on Madrid property.

GreenOak, which was founded by John Carrafiell, Sonny Kalsi and Fred Schmidt in 2010, has bought an office building on nº 123 Claudio Coello Street, in Madrid’s Barrio de Salamanca.

The property has a GLA of ​​over 4,000m² distributed across seven floors, as well as two floors of underground parking. The New York-based fund plans to hire a team of architects and advisors to carry out an in-depth refurbishment of the property and will be included in the Spanish REIT they plan to IPO during 2019.

According to co-founder John Carrafield, «Madrid continues to offer exceptional investment opportunities in offices. The city is enjoying strong economic growth however rents are still far from peak levels.» Since 2013, the fund, which is led by Jasie Leekha, Javier Zarrabeitia and Javier Lopez Galdos in Spain, has raised over €1.5bn to invest in Spain and has purchased 17 properties in Madrid and 3 in Barcelona adding over 150,000m² to its portfolio. Clifford Chance and Arcadis have advised the buyer and Pérez-Llorca was the legal advisor to the seller, TargoBank.

The property fund is currently developing a 23-storey luxury residential block in the north of Madrid, in alliance with Spanish construction company, Ibosa. The total investment is in the region of €86M and has been named “The Australis Tower”. The 77-storey building will be accompanied by two smaller annex buildings and will consist of 208 flats ranging between 1 and 4 bedrooms, with prices starting at €227,000.

GreenOak is a partner-owned, real estate investment management and advisory firm. It operates a highly focused, global investment platform, pursuing independent, discrete strategies in the United States, Europe and Asia. Currently, Green-Oak has over $13.4bn in assets under management.