Last week, the shareholders of PSP Swiss Property and REG Real Estate Group approved the merger of both companies to create Switzerland’s largest publicly-traded real estate company. Deutsche Bank is acting as sole financial advisor to the Board of REG.
With assets of CHF 3.9 billion (EUR 2.5 billion), the new company will be a Top-10 continental European publicly-traded real estate company, and the leader in Swiss real estate. It will own approximately 1 million m² of Swiss office and commercial space in Zürich, Geneva, Basel, Bern, Lausanne and other cities, including Switzerland’s prime locations.
PSP and REG foresee several key benefits for their shareholders from the merger: more stable cashflow from complementary portfolios; growth potential from attractive development sites; inclusion in the Swiss SPI index as well as the MSCI Small Cap index; a broader shareholder base; a free float of 86%; and increased attractiveness of the share for international institutional investors.
The transaction is indicative of a trend in which European publicly-traded real estate companies either become focused operators with sufficient size and share liquidity, or go private.
Source: Deutsche Bank
