Immofinanz launches €530m counter-offer for CA Immo shares

Immofinanz has hit back at attempts by fellow Austrian-listed property company, CA Immo, and Russian investor O1 Group to take a big stake in the company by launching a counter-offer for up to 29% of CA Immo's shares.

Immofinanz is offering €18.50 per CA Immo share, or about €530 mln for just short of a 29% stake, as the ongoing Austrian-Russian battle to gain strategic stakes in the largest listed Austrian property companies heats up.

Vienna and Warsaw-listed Immofinanz said on Monday that the offer price per share 'reflects' the level 01 Group paid for a 26% stake in CA Immo.

CA Immo's board quickly rejected Immofinanz's move as an 'emotional response' to the CA Immo-O1 Group bid to gain control of a 15% holding in Immofinanz. (For the full response, see CA Immo slams Immofinanz counter-bid as 'emotional response')

O1 Group acquired the stake for about €480 mln on 12 February 2015 through the purchase of shares from UniCredit Bank Austria and through a voluntary partial public offer. This added to the 16.4% obtained through an initial €300 mln investment in CA Immo, an office-focussed investor in Germany, Austria and CEE with €3.6 bn of assets under management.

Subsequently, in late February 2015, CA Immo and O1 Group unveiled an offer to acquire a 15% stake in Immofinanz, which has €6.8 bn of real estate under management in Austria, Germany, CEE and Russia. Immofinanz dismissed that the offer for the minority stake as 'ridiculous'.

Counter-offer
Unveiling its counter-offer for CA Immo shares, Immofinanz CEO Eduard Zehetner said: '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.'

Zehetner continued: 'Our offer will also allow the shareholders – in accordance with the proportional allocation of shares based on the Austrian Takeover Act – who were not included in the O1 partial offer to also sell their shares for €18.50. The same applies to O1 – the resulting funds could then be used for an investment in Immofinanz.'

The statement added that Immofinanz had liquid funds totalling €627.2 mln at the end-January 2015, which will increase further following the sale of assets during the final quarter of the current financial year.

Top Investors
Immofinanz and CA Immo feature in 49th and 151st respectively in PropertyEU's Top Investors ranking of dealmakers by transaction volume in 2014. Check out the Top Investors App for the ranking and background information on the top European dealmakers of 2014.