French banking group BNP Paribas has sold a 7% stake in European listed retail specialist Klépierre in a private placement to institutional investors for a total of €870 mln.
French banking group BNP Paribas has sold a 7% stake in European listed retail specialist Klépierre in a private placement to institutional investors for a total of €870 mln.
US shopping centre group Simon Property, Klépierre's largest shareholder with an 18.3% interest, participated in the placement with the acquisition of an additional 2%, bringing its total stake in Klépierre to 20.3%.
The bank sold the stake at €39.60 a share, or 4.5% below the closing price before the placement.
BNP Paribas said it will keep the 6.5% stake it still holds in Klépierre after the proposed sale for at least 90 days.
Klépierre is Europe's second largest listed shopping centre owner after the takeover earlier this year of Dutch peer Corio. Simon, the biggest shopping centre owner in the US, became Klépierre's largest investor in 2012 with the acquisition of 54.5 million shares, almost a 29% stake, from BNP Paribas, which was pressured by new Basel III regulations to strengthen its capital ratio.
The bank is Klépierre’s historic shareholder which founded the business in 1990 and kept a controlling stake for the past two decades.