The Board of Directors of Citycon Oyj has decided to start preparations for a directed share offering. Citycon shares will be offered to a limited number of selected Finnish and international institutional investors. The maximum number of new shares to be offered for subscription is 12,000,000 (twelve million).
Background to the share offering
In the beginning of July 2005 the Company's operations expanded to Sweden as the Company acquired the Åkersberga shopping center in greater Stockholm area. As an instrument to finance partly the acquisition of Rocca al Mare shopping center in Tallinn, Estonia executed on 21 July 2005 the Board has decided to prepare a share offering for institutional investors. The deviation from the shareholders' pre-emption right relates to the need to obtain in an efficient manner financing for the said acquisition of Rocca al Mare shopping center. The Board has decided that financing acquisitions is an important financial reason to deviate from the shareholders´ pre-emption rights. The Board has made this decision under the authorization of the Annual General Meeting of Citycon of 5 April 2005.
For financing future real estate acquisitions, the Board will be using both equity and debt instruments. Should in the near future new acquisitions materialize, the Board will also consider financing these partly by means of a rights issue.
Implementation of the share offering
The share offering will be implemented through a bookbuilding process which collects the bids for new shares made by selected institutional investors. Receipt of bids will commence on 25 July 2005 at 9.00 a.m. (Finnish time) and will end no later than 26 July 2005 at 6.00 p.m. (Finnish time) unless the period for receipt of bids is extended. The Company has the right to close the bookbuilding process in consultation with the lead manager, before 26 July 2005 at 6.00 p.m. (Finnish time), however not earlier than 25 July 2005 at 6.00 p.m. (Finnish time). An early closing of the bookbuilding process will be notified immediately by a stock exchange release.
Trading with the new shares is estimated to commence on the main list of the Helsinki Stock Exchange on 3 August 2005 subject to the receipt of all regulatory approvals. The Company will publish listing particulars prior to the commencement of public trading.
The new shares will correspond to approximately 10.6% of the Company's share capital and voting rights prior to the share offering and approximately 9.6% after the offering, provided that the offering is fully subscribed for.
The lead manager of the share offering will be Kempen & Co, a Dutch investment bank, based in Amsterdam.
Source: Citycon
