Asset manager Coima has asked Italian market watchdog Consob to lower its IPO minimum offer volume from €300 mln previously to €215 mln as investors’ interest fell a bit short of expectations amid challenging market conditions.
In the stock market filing Coima, which had already extended the offer period to April 8, is requesting to cancel the public offering of 3 million shares at a price of €10 apiece while going ahead with the institutional one of 27 million shares. The order book will remain open until a response from Consob.
The Milan-based asset manager, which is headed by Manfredi Catella, had initially planned to raise up to €330 mln including €30 mln from a greenshoe option for its income-generating property arm, Coima Res, which will become the newest tax-efficient real estate investment trust (REIT or in Italian, SIIQ) in Italy.
'The institutional tranche has been well received and is already placed among major institutional investors from Europe and the US,' a company spokesperson told PropertyEU. He said however that institutional investors preferred to give the stock a higher liquidity by taking smaller tickets compared to the ones initially suggested.
Coima had initially planned to launch the IPO in late 2015 but was forced to postpone it on difficult market conditions. The operation would create Italy's third REIT structure, alongside Beni Stabili and IGD.
Coima Res intends to use the capital raised by the IPO to partly finance the purchase the Vodafone Village properties in Italy, which are believed to be valued at just over €200 mln, as well as to pay taxes relating to the transaction and strengthen its asset and financial structure.
Qatar's sovereign wealth fund, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), has agreed to back the IPO by taking 14.45 million shares in exchange for the transfer of 96 assets mainly used as bank branches leased to the Deutsche Bank Group. The operation values QIA’s investment in the new Italian REIT at €145 mln.
