Asset manager Coima has received the go-ahead from Italian market watchdog Consob to list the shares of its Coima Res unit in the first IPO by an Italian real estate company in years.
Coima announced in early April that it had requested approval from Consob for a smaller IPO minimum offer volume of €215 mln as investors’ interest fell a bit short of expectations amid challenging market conditions.
In the stock market filing Coima, whose offer period run to April 8, said it would go ahead only with the institutional offering of 27 million shares at a price of €10 apiece and cancel the public offering of 3 million shares.
The Milan-based asset manager 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 in early April. 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.
The offering is coordinated and directed by Mediobanca – Banca di Credito Finanziario and Citigroup Global Markets, as joint global coordinators, which also act, together with Kempen & Co, Banca IMI and UniCredit Bank as joint bookrunners in the institutional offering. Mediobanca – Banca di Credito Finanziario acts as lead manager and sponsor.
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. It manages 13 funds on behalf of around 40 institutional investors for a total of over €5 bn of assets.
Italy eased rules for the so-called Società di Investimento Immobiliare Quotate (SIIQs or REITs) last summer through the 'Unblock Italy' decree. Signed by prime minister Matteo Renzi, the new legislation was designed to put the vehicle's tax-efficient status on an equal footing with the successful Spanish and French regimes while also bringing the SIIQs into line with the country's closed-end property funds.
The changes resulted in several companies announcing plans to launch new REITs over the past 12 months but none of them has yet been able to succeed.
Asset manager Sorgente, which last year had aimed to issue a total of 134 million shares at a price of €3 apiece, dropped plans for the €440 mln IPO as a result of poor investor demand.
