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Troubled Italian developer Risanamento has denied rumours of a sale of its French portfolio and its flagship Santa Giulia development site in Milan to a joint venture of Hines and the Qatari sovereign wealth fund.

Italy's leading financial paper Il Sole 24 Ore reported over the weekend that the Milan-based company had received an offer for the assets, valued at some €1.5 bn.

'Risanamento has not yet approved the sale of its assets in France. The company has only started a process aimed at extracting value from the French portfolio,' the Italian developer said.

PropertyEU reported last week that Risanamento mandated Bank Leonardo & Co. to sound out investors' interest in a portfolio of French office assets worth roughly €1 bn.

A company spokesperson told PropertyEU that the company wants to test investors' appetite for the assets, which represent its entire real estate portfolio in France.

'Bank Leonardo & Co. will hand out the results of these scouting activities at the end of August, and the company will use these as a basis to decide how to proceed,' she added.

Risanamento's French portfolio represents some 50% of its total assets, and a vast majority of its income-producing properties. In total, the company owns 76,700 m2 of offices distributed across nine buildings.

Major properties include 50, Avenue Montaigne, which was bought in 2005 from Unibail Rodamco for €233 mln as well as the Actualis mixed-use building, bought at the market peak in 2006 from Financière Pinault for €230 mln. The office and retail scheme provides 20,000 m2 of space at the corner of Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin and Boulevard Haussmann.

The assets are largely located in the prime Triangle D’Or area, and generated €12.3 mln of rents in the first three months of the year. At year-end 2012, Risanamento's French properties had a market value of €1.05 bn and debt of €757 mln.

Earlier this year, Milan-based developer Risanamento also sold 118 Avenue des Champs-Elysées to Pramerica Real Estate Investors for €135 mln while it did not reach an agreement with fund manager Idea Fimit over the sale of the huge Santa Giulia development area on the outskirts of Milan.