Italian asset manager Coima Sgr is pressing ahead with plans to spin off its income-generating assets into a new unit, known as Coima Res that will be listed on Milan stock exchange.

Italian asset manager Coima Sgr is pressing ahead with plans to spin off its income-generating assets into a new unit, known as Coima Res that will be listed on Milan stock exchange.

'We are still waiting for the green light from the Italian authorities. Once received any moment is good to go on the market,' a company spokesman told PropertyEU.

Coima, formerly known as Hines Italia, is the rebranded business of the Italian Catella family after it bought out US developer-investor Hines' majority stake.

CEO Manfredi Catella, who co-founded Hines Italia Sgr and owned 28.87%, took a majority interest in the business last September and rebranded it as Coima Sgr, in line with the his family's real estate services business, Coima.

The company also announced that it planned to list the bulk of its portfolio as a real estate investment trust, with the backing of Qatar Investment Authority (QIA).

Qatari partner
Qatari sovereign wealth fund QIA has already agreed to take a stake in the listed company, which would be the third such tax-efficient REIT structure in the country, alongside Beni Stabili and IGD. Earlier this year QIA finalised its two-part acquisition of the Porta Nuova mixed-use scheme in central Milan from Hines Italia for €2 bn.

Coima Sgr in particular manages 13 funds on behalf of around 40 institutional investors for a total of over €5 bn of assets. The company will focus on investing in income-generating assets, development and redevelopment projects as well as asset management for third parties.

The company's Bosco Verticale high-rise project in Milan's Porta Nuova was voted this week as the most beautiful and innovative skyscraper of the world by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat promoted by the Illinois Institute of Technology of Chicago.

The listing would mark another major success for Coima Sgr after a number of IPOs recently failed to take off on poor investor demand. Last month Italian asset manager Sorgente said it had dropped plans to list on the Milan stock exchange due to insufficient demand.

The real estate group aimed to issue a total of 134 million shares at a price of €3 apiece, giving the company an initial market cap of €440 mln.