With third lease agreement in 4 months, Urca Capital’s real estate fund reduces vacancy at The Corporate Macaé building
- As part of its asset recovery strategy, the manager secures a lease agreement with Gran Energia for portions of the 8th and 9th floors
Last Friday (20), the XP Corporate Macaé real estate fund, currently managed by Urca Capital, announced through a material fact the entry of a new tenant at The Corporate Macaé building. The tenant is Gran Energia, a company in the oil and gas sector, which is the predominant industry in the region.
The new lease is part of the asset recovery strategy and covers an area of 532 sqm, distributed across portions of the 8th and 9th floors. The agreed rental value was R$45/sqm, totaling approximately R$23.9 thousand per month. The contract started on March 18 and has a term of 60 months (5 years).
With the arrival of Gran Energia, the property’s vacancy rate was reduced from 51% to 48.6%, generating an estimated positive impact of approximately R$0.48 per share.
Fund history
The fund was established in March 2013 by XP Investimentos with the objective of developing a built-to-suit (BTS) project for Petrobras in Macaé, which gave rise to the name XP Corporate Macaé. In 2019, after difficulties faced by the state-owned company, the property was returned to the fund upon payment of a contractual penalty.
During XP’s management, with administration by Rio Bravo, the asset remained closed for a significant period, going through years of vacancy and only being reoccupied in 2022.
At the beginning of 2025, there was a management change. Urca Capital took over management from XP, while Oslo became the fund administrator, replacing Rio Bravo. The change was approved at a shareholders’ meeting in July and implemented in August.
According to Fernando Okada, partner at Urca Capital, the fund was taken over in a challenging scenario, with 57% physical vacancy, 70% financial vacancy, and only four months of cash runway.
“Since then, we have adopted a series of operational and commercial measures, including bringing in three new tenants, among them Gran Energia and ABZ. This allowed us to recover delinquency and lease idle areas, including parking spaces.
This resulted in a significant improvement in monthly cash flow, which dropped from around R$140–160 thousand to approximately R$30 thousand, and the fund’s cash position was partially preserved, even in a challenging scenario.”
Strategy and next steps
Currently, the fund is conducting a formal consultation with shareholders to implement structural changes, including the possible renaming to URCA VALORIZAÇÃO REAL FII.
“The main points are: greater flexibility in the investment policy, as the fund is currently single-asset (restricted to the Macaé property), allowing diversification and dilution of fixed costs to increase efficiency, and a new offering (capital raise) with an estimated CAPEX of R$5.1 million for asset maintenance.”
To accelerate occupancy, management has intensified commercial prospecting, expanding connections with local brokers.
