During the first semester of the year, the Spanish commercial market reached a little over €4bn which represents a 50% increase from the same period of the previous year and around 55% of the annual total for year 2014. You can still find high quality assets with lower capital values than other European markets thanks to the low rental level. In this sense, international investors have accounted for 55% of the total transactions and 40% of the number of deals. This reflects that, in general, they have more investment power than domestic companies, even though several domestic companies appear among buyers of the largest deals for the year.

^{Source: Savills European Research}

Pontegadea, with the acquisition of Gran Vía, 32 (which in short took in the largest Primark in Spain) for around €400m, Corporación Financiera Alba, with the purchase of the Ahorro Corporación building AZCA area for €142m, Meridia Capital, the new owner of the other part of the GE portfolio (11 office buildings in Madrid and Barcelona) for €120m and Hispania, the Azora REIT, with the acquisition of two hotels in the Canary Islands for €105m are the four Spanish firms that appear among the recorded megadeals.

Such agreements (deals <€0.5bn) now account for 11% of all transactions and 52% of total volume; similar levels to those seen in 2014, notwithstanding the various megadeals expected before the end of the year.

Source: Savills European Research

The retail segment has recorded various operations of greater volume, making up 45% of total transactions thereby beating the office market in terms of transactional value. The €1.7bn of transactions in the retail market are made up of 20 operations while only about 40 transactions make up the €1.25bn of deals in office transactions It is also interesting to note that in the section of portfolio sales, the office segment represents about 60% of the total, thanks to the disinvestment actions and asset turnover of large funds like Deutsche Bank and GE among the internationals and Naropa among the nationals.

The logistics segment has experienced a year to year growth of 70% with respect to the volume of transactions and almost €300m accumulated between January and June already representing more than 50% of the total registered in 2014. The hospitality market continues to show an increase in activity. Investment operations have already reached more than €500m, 92% of the annual total for the previous year.

The market is once again led by international firms, some of which have returned to the market after leaving during the most critical years of the crisis. Others have recently arrived not wanting to miss out on the recovery of a mature market with good opportunities for investment.

As for the pipeline, until the end of the year, it could reach €900m more of retail products and €1.2bn more in the Madrid office market (Torre Espacio making up almost half of the total). The prediction for all the tertiary activity could be a level similar to that of 2014.