ProLogis European Properties, a real-estate fund that invests in industrial properties, plans to raise as much as $1.05 billion in an initial public offering that may value the company at $3.55 billion.
The fund, which invests in distribution plants in 11 European countries, will sell about 49.7 million shares at a price of 14.35 euros to 14.85 euros a share, the company said in a statement Monday. It has the option to sell another 6.1 million shares if investor demand for the stock is high enough.
ProLogis European Properties will be the biggest IPO by a European real-estate company since 1999, when Canary Wharf sold $1.1 billion worth of shares. So far this year, at least 23 European property companies have sold shares to the public for the first time, raising a total of about $4.7 billion. Seven straight real-estate IPOs were pulled in June and July after the markets collapsed in May.
ProLogis’ IPO won’t raise any new money for the company, with all the proceeds going to the selling investors, it said in the statement. Denver-based ProLogis, which will own 24 percent of ProLogis European Properties and will manage the fund, won’t divest any units in the share sale, the company said.
“There is still plenty of appetite for real estate,” said Patrick Sumner, who oversees $1.2 billion of property stocks for Hen derson Group in London. “ProLogis is a pretty good demonstration of that.”
ProLogis, the world’s largest industrial-property owner, set up the European fund, which it manages for external investors and which has assets of 4.2 billion euros, in 1999.
ProLogis European Properties expects to announce the final offer price on or around Sept. 22. Trading in the shares will start on Euronext in Amsterdam before the end of the month.
Kenmore European Industrial Fund Ltd., a closed-end fund registered in Guernsey with 316 million euros of assets, said Monday that its shares will start trading on the London exchange Sept. 26. The fund plans to raise $261 million in an IPO and share placing, selling stock at 100 pence each. Investors will have to buy a minimum of 2,000 shares.
The Kenmore fund has 60 percent of its assets in France, it said in an e-mailed statement. The company plans to buy another 268 million euros of assets within a year. The fund will be managed by a unit of closely held, Edinburgh-based Kenmore Property Group Ltd.
