Dawnay Day to raise £275m
Article Date: Dec 05 2005Dawnay Day, under the aegis of entrepreneurial French-born financier Guy Naggar, will set the property world alight by co-ordinating AIM’s biggest flotation this year, and the second largest in the market’s history.
The flotation of Dawnay Day Treveria on AIM will raise up to £275 million and eclipse the fundraising by some way of Dawnay Day’s previous foray in this field back in July, when the group raised £140 million for Dawny Day Carpathian.
Ian Henderson, former chief executive of Land Securities, will chair the new company, currently looking to tap institutional investors for the money, giving a market value of £340 million. Citigroup and Deutsche Bank are advisers to the float.
Naggar says Treveria is a vehicle for investing in German commercial real estate, with a focus on retail assets. He believes the German retail property market provides a great investment opportunity, since rental yields in Germany are higher than comparative yields in other Western European nations, especially the UK.
‘Germany has very little retail property per capita. We already have 15 people on the ground in Germany, and we have an extensive pipeline of deals,’ says Naggar.
The investment criteria will focus on income-generating commercial retail properties located on the German high street and prime locations in German towns. The supply of new retail property in Germany has also been constrained by planning restrictions on new shopping developments.
Dawnay Day will inject an already assembled £435 million portfolio of property into the company. This initial portfolio already generates net rental income of £27 million a year and Dawnay Day is in talks regarding a further £885 million of assets for Treveria.
The previous vehicle, Dawnay Day Carpathian, set up to invest in Central and Eastern European retail property, has already completed three deals, worth £83 million.
