The bank last year launched the sale of all of its Spanish real estate assets except for its headquarters in the northern city of Santander. The bank had initially valued the real estate assets to be sold at $5.9 billion. However, with this recent sale, the total comes to about $6.5 billion, generating a total capital gain of about $2.5 billion.

Santander Financial City is a 395-acre complex, which includes offices, amenities and green space designed by architect Kevin Roche. It has more than four million sf of building space. The site also includes a hotel, training center, nursery school, sports facility and 18-hole golf course.

Last June, Santander had announced its intention to sell of its real estate assets with its stated purpose to "optimize the Group's balance sheet." In November, it completed two sizeable transactions.

The first sale included 10 buildings located in the main business areas of several Spanish cities, including Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Valladolid, Sevilla, Malaga and Palma de Mallorce. These properties were acquired by Grupo Pontegadea. The second included 1,152 offices in Spain. These spaces, primarily bank branches, were acquired by Pearl Group, whose main shareholder is Sun Capital.

Propinvest is a British property company run by private investor Glenn Maud, which has been actively acquiring properties across Europe. In December, Propinvest was part of a consortium that acquired Citigroup's Canary Wharf headquarters in London for about $1.4 billion. CB Richard Ellis arranged the transaction.

Instant Insights /

Propinvest Buys Spanish Bank HQ for $2.8B

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