In the midst of the expected rebound in the brick and cement industry, two renowned Chilean players in the field decided to join forces: Puerto+Arquitectura, owned by Gabriela Luksic, merged with Patagonland, owned by José Luis Délano and Diego Errázuriz.
The resulting real estate development company, named Puerto Patagon, has its objectives defined: it will seek to enter more markets, such as social housing, and reach new countries.
The ownership of the new real estate manager is divided equally between Puerto+Arquitectura de Luksic (50%) and José Luis Délano and Diego Errázuriz (50%), and begins its operations on a business scale close to 1.5 million UF (about US$ 63 million) in annual sales and plans to exceed 2.5 million UF (US$ 105 million) every 12 months for the next few years.
The general management of Puerto Patagon will be assumed by Diego Errázuriz, who will participate directly as a partner in the new company, independently of his participation in Patagonland.
Errázuriz himself explains to DF MAS the background of this merger, in a weak real estate market that is expected to rebound after the modifications led by the Kast administration to the General Urban Planning and Construction Ordinance (OGUC).
“This integration responds to a shared vision: to build a real estate platform with the scale, experience and capabilities necessary to become one of the relevant players in the industry,” he says, adding that in this union of companies, Patagonland brings “a solid track record in the structuring, management and marketing of real estate projects” in different regions of the country. While Puerto+Arquitectura incorporates “recognized experience in architecture, design and development of high-standard projects.”
The combination of both strengths – Errázuriz assures – will allow them to capture new investment opportunities and develop projects of greater value for their clients and investors.
“Our view is medium and long term. We want to build a solid and diversified portfolio (…), consolidating a relevant presence in Chile and incorporating development opportunities in other markets in the region, such as Uruguay and Peru, always with the help of top-level local partners,” says the manager of the resulting Puerto Patagon.
The new company will have a board of directors on which José Luis Délano and Álvaro Gómez are already confirmed, the latter, a childhood friend of Gabriela Luksic, founder of Puerto Publicidad and, until before the merger, executive director of Puerto+Arquitectura.
More segments
Errázuriz explains that the creation of Puerto Patagon does not imply the transfer or disappearance of the projects that currently belong to Patagonland or Puerto+Arquitectura. Thus, the initiatives currently underway by the aforementioned companies will continue in their respective companies, maintaining their ownership, structure and development independently.
In this way, the integration does not modify the ownership of the existing assets nor does it imply that the original companies cease to exist once their projects are completed. Puerto Patagon will be focused mainly on new businesses, which may originate from both Patagonland and Puerto+Arquitectura, in addition to opportunities directly identified by the new platform.
These projects – they specify from the new company – may be developed together with strategic partners and investors, under ownership and participation structures defined for each opportunity.
In this way, the new manager will allow both organizations to maintain their current projects and, at the same time, build a common platform to develop new real estate opportunities.
Errázuriz details that Puerto Patagon will focus its future developments on those segments and territories where both organizations already have proven experience, taking advantage of the synergies between real estate management, architecture, urban development and investment structuring.
In Chile, the company resulting from the merger will seek to develop new residential, commercial and mixed-use initiatives, as well as housing projects in different segments.
In parallel, Puerto Patagon will evaluate the incorporation of opportunities that Patagonland is currently developing in Uruguay, as well as new projects in that market. The incorporation of each initiative will be analyzed individually, considering its stage of development, corporate structure and the existing agreements with its respective partners.
Likewise, the company will advance in the evaluation of opportunities in other markets in the region, including Lima, Peru, always with the help of local partners with experience and knowledge of each market.
The partners
After returning to Chile more than a decade ago, after a long stay in England, Gabriela Luksic, the youngest of the clan, put an important part of her assets in the real estate industry through her investment company Petra and its different branches, such as Puerto+Arquitectura.
Through the latter, the businesswoman specialized in the development of high-standard residential projects with projects in Vitacura, Providencia, Cachagua and other areas of the Metropolitan and Valparaíso regions.
Patagonland, for its part, was born more than 15 years ago and has 22 completed projects and 12 in development (residential, commercial, office and subdivision initiatives in different regions of Chile) and initiatives in Uruguay.
The partners of the merged company have known each other for years: Gabriela has invested in Patagonland projects and participated in the fund through which they sought to build a building for luxury housing on the land that for years housed the Unicef headquarters, on the corner of Isidora Goyenechea and La Pastora.
Finally, this initiative did not prosper, and Patagonland sold the land to businessman Claudio Fischer, who has already begun work to build a high-standard office building on that emblematic corner.
In the real estate industry there is already talk of incipient green shoots, which are expected to be driven by regulatory changes, among which are a reduction in parking for new works, greater effective constructibility and a direct increase in the square meters built, as well as an increase in the number of apartments within the same built volume as the demographic calculation standard is reduced.
In fact, an important part of President Kast and his Minister of Finance, Jorge Quiroz, for the rebound of the national economy are placed in the construction sector.
Source: www.df.cl
