Political contrast: The Government awards a million-dollar contract to Blackstone despite its rhetoric

"Either you are with the vultures or with the people." This is how the Minister of Housing, Isabel Rodríguez, presented the vote on the decree-laws last Friday. And the day before, Pedro Sánchez himself said: "I like being a traitor to vulture funds."

Once again, the political rhetoric that the Government uses to try to mobilize the masses does not fit its facts. Blackstone, the real estate investment fund most pointed out by members of the Government and its partners as a vulture in recent years, has just secured a large public housing management contract - including social housing - worth 52.45 million euros with the current Executive, as confirmed by EL MUNDO.

Sánchez himself classified Blackstone as a "vulture fund" when he came to power due to the acquisitions it had made of social housing. This gigantic American fund has managed more than 30,000 apartments through subsidiaries in recent years and has become a gigantic landlord in Spain after acquiring homes from former savings banks or administrations such as the Madrid City Council in the last decade.

However, on the State contracting portal it is not as bad as in political speeches. The so-called Asset Management Company from Bank Restructuring (Sareb), controlled by the Government, last month informed its employees of the definitive signing of a contract with Aliseda, Blackstone's housing manager in Spain. Sareb, better known as a bad bank for having taken over real estate assets from savings banks, thus once again turns to this Blackstone subsidiary as a servicer for a period that began last month until December 2028, extendable until 2030. There is no official statement, but it is a contract already closed and signed last August, at a time when the Minister of Housing said that she was already finalizing a decree against vulture funds finally presented to the Parliament, without success, last Friday.

What will Aliseda do for the State? A reinforced work on which it had been carrying out since 2022 and which has now been awarded again and for longer. According to the contract signed by its CEO, Eduard Mendiluce, it is the "comprehensive" management of Sareb's real estate assets, either for sale or for their development and transfer to the state company Casa 47, attached to the Rodríguez Ministry.

Aliseda will be in charge of marketing and selling homes, premises or land, managing rentals, including reports on non-payments and vulnerable tenants. Also the "management of occupations and possessions." It will work together with the other probable winner, Servihabitat - now owned by the Hipoges fund - to bring to fruition "the more than 40,000 homes reserved by Sareb for transfer in order to carry out all the work necessary for their habitability." All of this, "following instructions from Sareb", not acting on their free will, as stated in the bidding document, but, to be an alleged evil vulture fund. The mission entrusted to it by the State is sensitive as it is key to expanding the necessary public housing stock.

The last official news of the contest was that Aliseda and Servihabitat had received the best score, but the decision of the Board of Directors was pending. This, controlled by the Ministry of Carlos Corps, has already authorized Blackstone - logical if Sareb values ​​its services - but is waiting for a challenge affecting Servihabitat that could be resolved in October in favor of its new owner, Hipoges, controlled in turn by the British fund Pollen Street Capital. Urba Gestión, the crazy SME that did such terrible management with the evicted Maricarmen, is a pigmy in comparison. However, Blackstone, accused by many tenants of abusive practices in recent years, has denied irregularities, but has been reducing home ownership. He remains, however, a relevant investor in Spain. It has bought 50% of Urbaser for around 2,800 million and is building a data center in Zaragoza for more than 13,000 million. It will also take its hotel subsidiary HIP public.

Blackstone highlights, by the way, in its latest annual report that the residential business will continue to be strong in Spain, because 714,005 homes are no longer built per year as in the period 2003-2007, but 118,692. "This factor, together with the considerable need for housing in the coming years - a population increase of 5 million inhabitants is projected in 15 years - places the residential market as a sector of great strength, where prices can withstand moments of uncertainty with solvency." That is to say, what most protects the housing business is that the Government has been incapable of promoting massive construction of apartments in eight years in power. Another paradox.