Frankfurt: German residential property group LEG is set to become the region’s first initial public offering in 2013, announcing on Monday that it is planning to list its shares on the stock market in the first half of the year.
Sources close to the transaction told Reuters that the listing is likely to take place in February, since an intention to float is usually issued four weeks ahead of an offering.
The share sale, which could be worth more than €1 billion ($1.30 billion), would be a positive step for an IPO market which has struggled for months amid Europe’s debt crisis and sluggish economic growth.
In Germany, LEG is also the first of two large real estate groups aiming to list on the stock exchange this year.
Deutsche Annington, owned by private equity firm Terra Firma and holding apartments with a total value of about 10 billion euros, is considering a listing in late 2013.
The groups are likely candidates for inclusion in the bluechip index and midcap index. Companies with a free-float market capitalisation of about 5 billion euros usually qualify for inclusion on the Dax index, while €1 billion is usual for the MDax index.
Last year, LEG had said its enterprise value — including debt — stood at €4.7 billion. The net asset value of LEG’s real estate portfolio was €2.37 billion as per end-September 2012, LEG said on Monday.
According to the sources close to the deal, the owners — Goldman Sachs’s investment fund Whitehall and investor Perry Capital — will sell a minority stake in the IPO.
Last year, sources had said that LEG’s owners will likely list a stake of up to a third on the stock exchange with follow-on placements later.
The Duesseldorf-based company has picked Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank as main advisers for the offering. Berenberg Bank, Commerzbank, Erste Bank and Kempen will act as co-lead Managers.
Whitehall bought LEG, which owns 91,000 residential apartments, in 2008 from the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
