VastNed Offices/Industrial has sold its logistics center in Ridderkerk, the Netherlands, for 31.0 million. In view of its improved solvency due also to sales realised earlier, VastNed Offices/Industrial will start buying back its own shares.
The property that was sold concerns the Ridderhaven logistics center in Ridderkerk, the Netherlands, of approximately 51,000 m² in total. The buyer of the property is Halverton Real Estate Investment Management LLP. This sale limits the potential vacancy in 2006 and 2007. The net sales result amounted to 31.0 million. The sale was realised at a price that lay marginally below the most recently published appraisal value.
Due to this and other sales realised this year, VastNed Offices/Industrial's solvency has improved sufficiently to allow new investments to be made in support of the direct investment result per share. In view of the present tight investment market and the current return on VastNed Offices/Industrial shares, the board of management has decided to use part of the proceeds of the property sales to buy back the company's own shares in support of the direct investment result per share. A maximum of 750,000 shares may be purchased under the buy back programme.
Reinier van Gerrevink, chief executive officer of VastNed Offices/Industrial: 'The current property investment market is marked by falling initial yields. It remains important for us to continue to strive for investments with a balanced risk/return profile. In the short term we see insufficient opportunities for fully reinvesting the means released. Therefore for the time being we will employ the means released for buying back the company's own shares. Thus in principle we invest in our own property portfolio, which we know well and which shows high returns.'
The buyback of shares will start today and will end on February 8, 2006 at the latest, unless at an earlier date 750,000 shares will already have been purchased. The shares will not be acquired at a higher price than that of the latest independent transaction or the highest current independent bid price on the trading platforms where the purchase is made, whichever is the highest.
In principle no more shares will be purchased per day than 25% of the average daily trading volume of VastNed Offices/Industrial shares on Euronext Amsterdam. The average daily volume is calculated as the average daily trading volume on the 20 trading days preceding the date of this press release.
The buy back programme hereby announced will be executed by Kempen & Co based on an irrevocable proxy issued by VastNed Offices/Industrial. Consequently, Kempen & Co will take the trading decisions regarding the purchase of VastNed Offices/Industrial shares independently of VastNed Offices/Industrial.
VastNed Offices/Industrial will issue a weekly press release in which it will publish the transactions in the context of the buy back programme made during the relevant period. In case of a so-called 'block trade', when agreement is reached directly with a shareholder to purchase a certain number of shares, every time ahead of its execution a separate public announcement will be made of the number of shares purchased and the price at which the shares are to be purchased.
Source: VastNed
