Real Estate fund sells tourism assets worth €192 million to pay debts

The investment fund which manages the troubled Herdade da Comporta resort development is to sell off tourist assets to pay debts failed bank Banco Espírito Santo owes to public bank Caixa Geral de Depósitos.

 

Herdade da Comporta – Special Closed Real Estate Investment Fund, which manages the real estate assets belonging to troubled resort Herdade da Comporta will sell the land earmarked for  Comporta Links Resort in Alcacer do Sal which belong to the ‘toxic’ bank.

Plans for Comporta Links had included two hotels, a golf course, two apartment hotels, three tourist village and a residential estate.

Land for the most emblematic project, Comporta Dunes,  a 550 hectare development in Grândola, with a golf course, three hotels, one apartment hotel, eight tourist villages, and a vast residential estate, will also be sold off.

The sale will allow the fund to pay debts owed to Caixa Geral de Depósitos which stand at around €120 million and which are in default.

In 2017 the Government halted the sale of troubled Herdade da Comporta resort to entrepreneur Pedro de Almeida because of “lack of transparency and objectivity”.

The company Back in Line, reported as dealing with the sales, recently stated that it is not acting as a financial intermediary in selling Espírito Santo Group (GES) assets, despite its role in managing the administration of companies involved in the wholesale sell off of the tourism assets in the GES portfolio as part of the insolvency process pertaining to Rioforte Investments (RFI) and Espírito Santo International (ESI).

Rather the intermediary are the official receivers appointed by a court in Luxembourg to oversee the sale of the assets.

The Herdade de Comporta project was the first post-crisis tourism development launched in Portugal in April 2013 by the then Minister of the Economy, Álvaro Santos Perreira.

In April, it was announced that a French aristocrat, Louis-Albert de Broglie, wanted to purchase part of Herdade de Comporta for €400 million for a “Utopia” project comprising museums, alternative schools, innovation centres and a nature reserve.