IVG Immobilien to list REIT on 24 July

German property giant IVG Immobilien has applied for admission to the Munich Stock Exchange to list its real estate investment trust (REIT), which has been registered as a pre-REIT since August 2007. The listing is scheduled to take effect on 24 July 2012 and will not be accompanied by a public offer.

IVG said that without a stock market listing, the entity’s pre-REIT status would have expired. Once listed, IVG Group will hold 75% of the shares in the IVG-REIT, while 25% will be distributed across a total of nine investors that acquired their shares prior to the stock market listing.

IVG executives Guido Piñol, David Canals, and Jonas Kriebel have been appointed to the management board of IVG-REIT. Wolfgang Schäfers, CEO of IVG, and CFO Hans Volkert Volckens are members of the supervisory board.

Commenting on the listing, Schäfers said the REIT was a competitive and internationally known investment structure which expanded the company’s range of indirect property investments. ‘On account of current market developments, regulatory and tax conditions, and the changing financing environment, we are confident that the REIT investment platform will have a successful future in general, including in Germany. Accordingly, we also see potential in terms of the growth story of the IVG-REIT once the stock market environment for property shares improves,’ he said.

IVG said the REIT will remain fully consolidated in the long term and will therefore have no impact on the group’s balance sheet and income statement. ‘It should be seen as a technical listing,’ said CFO Volkert Volckens. The NAV and FFO of IVG Immobilien will also be unaffected by the stock market listing, he noted.

The 32 properties of the IVG-REIT had a market value of EUR 1.35 bn at 31 March 2012. The properties are located in Berlin, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Munich. The Allianz insurance group is the largest tenant in the REIT portfolio, accounting for around 60% of the annual rent. No acquisitions for the IVG-REIT portfolio are currently planned.

IVG Immobilien is one of Europe’s largest real estate and infrastructure companies with assets under management of around EUR 21.5 bn.