At first sight, Mercanās buyback deal appeared super attractive. I tried hard to work out its business model with numbers from first principles. Below are my two cents. (Disclaimer: I have neither finance background nor insider information, so my speculation may be inaccurate or even totally wrong.)
Assumption: the actual cost of a project is much lower than the amount Mercan raises from GV investors. Letās say only ~50% of the 280k is spent on construction, rehabilitation and all other expenses. In other words, Mercan instantly takes ~50% as profit at each sale, so the buyback pressure is not that huge, as not 100% of the buyback money needs to come from the hotelās operating profit in the first 5 years.
If everything goes well, as predicted by Mercanās financial model (e.g. occupancy rate, ADR, etc.), a project may generate enough money to cover ~40% of buyback money needed at the end of the 5th year. Thus, together with the profit Mercan pocketed at the very beginning , Mercan has enough money to buy back. Hooray!
If earnings from the hotel are not enough, Mercan may buy back part of the hotel shares first; then get a bank loan using the shares as a collateral then use the loan to buy back some more shares; then reverse mortgage some more; so on and so forth.
If case 2 does not fully work out, Mercan may open new projects and raise more GV money, so that they can use the āinstant profitāto fulfill the buyback obligations of older projects, while hoping new projects may work out better in terms of profitability.
In case all above donāt work out well, as written in the contract, Mercan will pay a 3 - 4% annual interest to investors (assuming they still have enough cash flow to do so). After all, investors canāt really force Mercan to execute the buyback.
Again, above are purely my speculations. It could be wrong.
Which is why buyback guarantees are ultimately meaningless and will only be executed if theyāre in the best interests of Mercan (or similar devlopers).
Thank you for sharing the analysis of their financial plan, I agree with you that their assumptions for payback look aggressive. It sounds as if the guarantee has nothing backing it if the project goes poorly and the developers have multiple āfree optionsā across projects. Did you find another investment option that might have a better alignment of interests and economics? It seems like everyone is advocating for Mercan but they canāt show any examples of round-tripped deals in Portugal.
Mercanās cost calculator (provided if you fill out their request for more info form) states that 175,000 ā¬ is for āInvestment - purchase of propertyā and the remaining 105,000 ā¬ is for āInvestment - rehabilitation works.ā
It is, yet nowhere in this thread has anyone quoted the correct renovation cost. You alone have gotten it wrong or implied otherwise at least 5 times:
In fact, their own stated renovation cost of 105,000 ā¬ is not so different from the $75k number you provided (which you did not source, I might add).
Iām starting to wonder if youāre the one trolling us all.
Actually, I canāt. With 270 rooms and 385 investors it doesnāt change the math all that much. I get 149,722 ā¬ āper room,ā but as discussed elsewhere Iām not sure all of that is going into the rooms themselves. Failing to consider the capital needed to acquire the property still leads one astray.
Last I checked, Mercan has never bought back a property and thereās no way to force them to do so if they say no.
Mercan, like any business, will always choose the better option for Mercan between exercising the buyback (if property value has gone up significantly and they benefit from owning it directly) and paying the penalty.
Without an unequivocal guarantee and liquidated damages for the full purchase amount agreed to by a well-funded entity, these buyback guarantees are worth no more than the paper theyāre written on.
Lastly, the median cost to develop luxury hotels was recorded at $675,000 per room.
The costs listed for āRedevelopmentā projects are lower, but those presumably include a cross section of budget through luxury hotels, so Iām not sure how indicative the data are.
In any event, even when you look at the cost of a the project as a whole on a per-room basis, it doesnāt appear that the costs alone are vastly out of line with US-based projects. What am I missing?
Of course itās risky. Thatās the whole point. So are pretty much all the other options, besides perhaps the $1.5M capital transfer option if you have the cashing lying around. Or heck, go start a company and create some jobs! If you can bootstrap it, all youāll lose is your own time.
With the Mercan project, at least youāll (a) own a piece of real estate, and (b) there is a path where someone might buy it back for a previously-determined sum.
Iāve been talking to Mercan on the Lagos Marina.
Besides the investment and "buy-back"concerns already posted here , I get sceptical with the level of information disclosed by Mercan. They do share information the more you ask for it up to a certain level.
They curb the sharing on the basis that they see it not as real estate investment, but a free interest loan as a way to get the golden visa.
My view is that if you as investor may find yourself keeping this property for a long time (or never being able to get out of it unless you sell it to a third party most likely for a fraction of what you invested), then your risks are totally related to the real estate, thus the more information they release on the development the more we are able to assess the risks and the level of trust on them. But they chose to leave us in the limbo.
This is what I learnt:
Marina Lagos is not a ārefurbishmentā project, but a new one built from scratch on a plot where currently has a small ruin to be demolished. They claim the very existence of the ruin justifies to label it as "rehabilitation"so they can offer lower golden visa investment entries.
The cost of construction is about 40 million and that is why the investors pay 105K for rehabilitation works.
The other 67 million seems to be way over the cost of the property and I assume most of it get pocketed by Mercan as āmanagementā for their operations and profits, unless as others pointed out there is a huge debt on the property to be covered (which doesnāt speak wonders for the optimism of having a good valuation increase in futureā¦).
This is what I would like to know, but I donāt:
The real cost of the property.
Why they donāt disclose the blueprints of the project before signing with investors, and/or share the stage of statutory approval process. I understand project may suffer changes in this process but at this point the design is mature enough for them to have full construction quotations from contractors.
Why in no documents they include a full description of the development the investors and buying -in, such as a list of all facilities and respective areas, level of finishes etc. that means that none of that is contract-binding and Mercan can do whatever they want in the end should any problems arise during construction.
Why Mercan will not back all these contracts and ābuy-backsā, offering investors a deal with a SPV of 1,500 euro capital.
I would appreciate to hear any of your opinions on these topics. Your thoughts are very helpful !
Also, I would also like to have information on the choice of funds some of you talked about.
Ed, I would appreciate knowing what VC conclusion you reached. We are just beginning our journey towards a GV and are overwhelmed with investor profiles and seemingly endless ways to hand over half a mil. wink:
Thank you for sharing your ideas and conclusions. That 1/2 mil is a huge chunk of $$ for us.
Hi, Carol - I understand both how overwhelming the info flood can be and that $500K is a lot of money - weāre right there with you on both counts! We ultimately went with Iberis Capital, which had 2 funds at the time. The āconservativeā fund was Portugal Yield Fund (I believe there is now a Portugal Yield Fund II), which primarily invests in commercial real estate ventures. PYF is an owner/part owner of a few grocery stores, a furniture store, and a temporary workspace office building. Its primary income is from rents, with a view to selling out at the fundās end to pay off the investors. The other fund (Greytech II) invested in more high-tech things and hopes for higher returns than the PYFās promoted ~ 5% per year. From our perspective, while those arenāt great returns, we invested them money here for the side benefits of the GV - not to make a lot of money. We figured if we get our money back, weāll feel good about the decision; if we earn anything on it over the long term, then weāll be even happier. Hence, the decision to go with a conservative investment.
Iāll also note that they took a big upfront fee (7%), unlike some other funds, and that they only get paid once we earn 4%. But again, if we get our money back, weāll be satisfied.
Thank you, Ed. It is good to hear from someone who has been through the sorting process and made a decision. Thank you for taking the time to share your experience.
Best wishes to you and Megan in your journey. BTW, have you located where youād like to base yourselves in Pt? Weāre headed over in Sept to travel via car and explore various regions. Thanks, again!
For similar reasons as Ed above, I went with the IMGA AƧƵes Portugal fund - basically an index fund of the portuguese stock market. Very transparent and low fee, Iām happy with it so far.
Be aware of the huge delays in getting the GV lately, plenty of threads on that
Agree. I would not have pulled the trigger if I had known all of this hassle. GV is like having a pet elephant. It has been eating all my savings at every step. For the size of investment made, I expect better treatment from the Portuguese government. Not worth it IMO.
There should be consular sections in embassies around the world that should facilitate the whole process, right from application submission to card issuance. Without making the investors run around. There should be set timelines of how long an application should take to adjudicate.
At this point I am doing this whole thing as a pet project that I want to complete whether I am going to make any use of it or not.