The offer of Immofinanz comes after O1 Group Limited, controlled by Russian businessman Boris Mints, which owns 26% in CA Immo, has recently announced it seeks to buy a 15% stake in Immofinanz, in a deal exceeding EUR400 million. Immofinanz deemed the offer unsatisfactory.
Immofinanz had previously planned to enter CA Immo shareholders structure by taking over the stake of Unicredit, which accepted the offer of the Russian group.
Immofinanz, one of the major property investors in Romania, owns 82 properties in Romania in total, of which 15 finalized, 12 under development, and 55 under analysis, worth a total EUR957.5 million (EUR658.4 million – finalized investments, EUR41.3 million – projects under development, and EUR257.3 million – projects under analysis).
CA Immo owns in Bucharest an office portfolio of over 100,000 square meters while Immofinanz is the biggest office owner, with over 200,000 sqm. Thus, the two companies hold 15% of the Bucharest office stocks, estimated at 2.16 million sqm.
“We expressed our interest in this smaller competitor during the previous year when UniCredit sold its investment in CA Immo, and I can now only repeat the reasons stated at that time: CA Immo fits well with Immofinanz in regard to its core countries and asset classes, and our long-standing experience in Central and Eastern Europe would allow us to support the management in realising their planned course for further expansion in these countries,“ Immofinanz CEO Eduard Zehetner said in a statement.
Immofinanz had liquid funds totaling EUR627.2 million at the end of January 2015, which will increase further following the sale of assets during the final quarter of the current financial year, according to the statement.