Halifax-based real estate investment fund Homburg Invest has won the takeover battle for Montreal-based landlord Alexis Nihon, but only after agreeing to sell Alexis Nihon's industrial and office properties to rival bidder Cominar Real Estate Investment Trust.
Halifax-based real estate investment fund Homburg Invest has won the takeover battle for Montreal-based landlord Alexis Nihon, but only after agreeing to sell Alexis Nihon's industrial and office properties to rival bidder Cominar Real Estate Investment Trust.
Alexis Nihon is a real estate investment trust (REIT) with retail, office and industrial property throughout Quebec. It has been at the centre of a three-way takeover battle in recent months involving three shareholders: Quebec City-based Cominar, Summit, the third largest REIT in Canada, and Homburg, which is controlled by Dutch investor Richard Homburg.
Homburg Invest announced on Tuesday that it had reached a definitive agreement with Alexis Nihon under which Alexis Nihon will support Homburg's offer to acquire all of the company’s outstanding shares for CAD $18.60 per unit. Cominar has agreed to waive its five-day right to match Homburg's offer and to waive the CAD $12.5 mln termination fee in relation to the Homburg offer, if it is not completed, but not with respect to any other acquisition proposal.
The deal was sweetened for Cominar after Homburg undertook to have Alexis Nihon sell its industrial and office properties to Cominar for CAD $592 mln (EUR 386 mln) and assumption of the debt relating to the properties. The board of trustees of Alexis Nihon, with Richard a Nihon abstaining, recommended that shareholders accept Homburg's offer.
