Mark Simon for The New York TimesA street scene in Berlin. The German property market is robust, fueling interest in real estate companies.
LONDON – A German property company owned by the Goldman Sachs investment fund Whitehall announced on Monday that it was planning an initial public offering, one of the first new listings in Europe this year.
The I.P.O. of LEG Immobilien, which specializes in residential property, is expected to raise up to 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion). Shares in the company are expected to start trading in February, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The announcement comes as many European stock markets have rebounded after a last-minute agreement on the United States budget was brokered at the end of last year.
Several multibillion-dollar offerings late last year, including those of the Russian telecommunications company MegaFon and the British insurer Direct Line, have also raised hopes that Europe’s capital markets are slowly opening for new I.P.O.’s in 2013.
Another German real estate company, Deutsche Annington Immobilien, which is controlled by the private equity company Terra Firma Capital Partners, is also reported to be planning a public offering this year.
Under the terms of the announcement on Monday, LEG Immobilien said it would list on the Frankfurt stock exchange. The value of its real estate portfolio, including debt, was around 4.7 billion euros last year.
Whitehall and a fellow investor, Perry Capital, are expected to retain a stake in the company after the I.P.O., according one person with direct knowledge of the matter. Goldman Sachs and Perry Capital bought LEG Immobilien, which owns more than 90,000 properties in Germany, for about 3.4 billion euros from the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia in 2008.
Goldman Sachs has been an active investor in European real estate in the last several years. Late last year, the bank’s Whitehall investment fund sold a portfolio of five European hotels to a joint venture part owned by the property company Host Hotels Resorts for 440 million euros. In 2011, Goldman and the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management also raised about 470 million euros through the initial offering of the German property company GSW Immobilien.
Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank are joint global coordinators and bookrunners on the offering, while Berenberg Bank, Commerzbank, Erste Bank and Kempen are co-lead managers.
Article source: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/goldman-backed-property-company-announces-i-p-o/?partner=rss&emc=rss
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