Merrill Lynch's Galante fund has launched a counter bid of EUR 760 per unit, or a total of EUR 433 mln, for Italy's real estate office fund Berenice. The new bid beats the EUR 725 offer for each of the 570,000 Berenice units already made by Goldman Sachs-owned Zwinger Opco. Goldman Sachs had itself outbid an earlier offer made by Pirelli RE and Morgan Stanley of EUR 685 per unit.
Merrill Lynch's Galante fund has launched a counter bid of EUR 760 per unit, or a total of EUR 433 mln, for Italy's real estate office fund Berenice. The new bid beats the EUR 725 offer for each of the 570,000 Berenice units already made by Goldman Sachs-owned Zwinger Opco. Goldman Sachs had itself outbid an earlier offer made by Pirelli RE and Morgan Stanley of EUR 685 per unit.
Goldman Sachs could now be out of the running for Berenice a week after it abandoned the race for another Italian office fund, Tecla. Just a week ago, Zwinger and Gamma RE, the Pirelli RE/Morgan Stanley venture, reached a deal to end a bidding war to take control of the Berenice and Tecla funds. Under the agreement, Zwinger would give full rein to Gamma RE's bid for Tecla, while Zwinger will be able to go forward with its offer for the other fund, Berenice. The offer is for 95% of Berenice, as Pirelli RE, manager of the fund, controls the remaining 5%. Goldman Sachs' offer for Berenice, which owned assets worth about EUR 800 mln euros at the end of 2006, runs until 20 July.
On Friday, Pirelli RE said it bought 86% of Tecla through a public offer. Its Gamma RE venture paid EUR 255 mln to take control of some 633,000 units of the Tecla fund.
