Italian REIT Coima Res has disposed another tranche of bank branches in Northern Italy for €23.5 mln, taking its bank sales to €66.3 mln.
The firm said that the price was substantially in line with the properties' book value as of June 30, with a discount of just 2.0%. The disposal is expected to close before June 2020.
The sale means that Coima has now offloaded 48% of the Deutsche bank portfolio, which was contributed by Qatar Holding at the time of Coima's IPO in exchange for a 40% stake in the firm.
This includes the disposal of the entire South of Italy portfolio closed in January 2018 and representing 60% of the disposals to date. There has been an average discount of just 1.6% on total sales of €66.3 mln, the firm said.
The remaining portfolio is made up of 58 bank branches valued at Euro €69.6 mln, representing less than 10% of the overall Coima portfolio.
Overall, 52% of the remaining bank branches portfolio is situated in Lombardy (of which 10% is in Milan), 13% is in Rome (one single bank branch), 10% is in Piedmont, 10% is in Veneto, 9% is in Tuscany, 6% is in Liguria and the remaining 1% is in Emilia Romagna.
Coima said it would continue to evaluate further disposals of bank branches with the aim to further concentrate its portfolio in Milan.
The news came as Coima unveiled its Q3 results, with EBITDA up 11.6% year-on-year to 16.9 mln, and EPRA new profit at €2.8 mln, versus the €2.2 mln expected by Equita Analysts. Net profit was also at €2.6 mln, against an expected figure of €2.2 mln, according to Equita.
'The positive results achieved in the first nine months of 2019 consolidate the quality of Coima Res’ portfolio which further concentrates in Milan Porta Nuova, the most liquid commercial real estate segment with the greatest growth prospects in Italy,' said Manfredi Catella, founder and CEO of Coima Res.
'The acquisition of the Philips and Microsoft headquarters, the development of the Accenture and Bending Spoons headquarters and the reduction of the bank branches exposure to less than 10% of the overall portfolio contribute to the strengthening and to the performance of the company,' Catella concluded.
