On Thursday, the real estate company presented the final result of how many investors have offered their shares after the offer period has expired.
(Photo: dpa)
Frankfurt The largest takeover in the history of the German real estate industry is sealed: The Dax group Vonovia has secured a clear majority in the Dax rival in the offer for Deutsche Wohnen.
After the end of the first acceptance period for the billion-dollar takeover offer, Vonovia owns 60.3 percent of the voting rights, as the Bochum-based group announced on Thursday morning. As a result, Vonovia becomes the majority shareholder in the competing company.
The success of the takeover was no longer questionable recently. Vonovia announced at the beginning of last week that it would hold a 50.49 percent stake in Deutsche Wohnen. The first deadline for the takeover offer, which was worth up to 19 billion euros, ended on October 4 at midnight. Vonovia is offering 53 euros per Deutsche Wohnen share.
Nevertheless, Vonovia’s share could still increase a little. Because investors can continue to sell their Deutsche Wohnen shares to Vonovia. Although the first period of the takeover offer has ended, takeover law provides for a second, two-week grace period that runs from October 8 to October 21 at midnight.
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In this phase, undecided investors still have the opportunity to tender their shares at the fixed price of 53 euros. The experts at the US bank Jeffries speculate that Vonovia could probably even get a stake of 60 to 70 percent in Deutsche Wohnen in the end.
The largest real estate group in Europe is created
The merger creates by far the largest real estate group in Europe. The two real estate giants listed in the leading index Dax together own around 550,000 apartments valued at more than 80 billion euros, most of them in Germany.
Deutsche Wohnen’s real estate portfolio is primarily located in Berlin. The group is heavily criticized in the capital: The Berliners voted on election Sunday at the end of September in a referendum in favor of the socialization of apartments of large corporations. However, the vote is not legally binding.
Vonovia boss Rolf Buch spoke out in favor of constructive solutions in Berlin. Vonovia is ready to tackle the challenges on the Berlin housing market with a new state government and the relevant social actors in the city, the group said.
Vonovia and Deutsche Wohnen had already sold 14,750 apartments to municipal housing companies in Berlin as part of their merger plans. In the next step, they want to voluntarily limit their rents in Berlin for the next five years. In addition, they are ready to build around 13,000 new apartments in Berlin. Buch spoke out in favor of a “new alliance for living”.
Success on the second attempt
Together, the two companies now want to become the largest private developer of apartments in Germany. The Federal Cartel Office had already approved the plans. Vonovia’s last takeover offer for Deutsche Wohnen had failed at the end of July due to the minimum acceptance threshold of 50 percent. The Bochum company was only able to collect 47.6 percent of the shares.
In the now successful start, Vonovia removed this threshold shortly before the end of the offer period, which is why the transaction could not fail due to the conditions. The decision of the citizens of Berlin to let the Senate examine the expropriation of large landlords, however, puts the new giant under pressure.
The approach taken by the two groups during the takeover has also met with clear criticism from investors in the past few days. In the dispute with the London hedge fund Davidson Kempner, however, the corporations were able to book a point victory.
The hedge fund withdrew an application for an injunction against Deutsche Wohnen on Wednesday. The plaintiffs justified the move with the fact that the real estate company had assured the financial investor in writing that it no longer wanted to make use of the controversial options. Deutsche Wohnen confirmed that the application had been withdrawn. However, the lawyer for the hedge fund emphasized that the matter would be followed closely and that further legal action would be reserved.
A quick decision in the dispute between the hedge fund and the group is thus averted for the time being. Davidson Kempner applied for an injunction against Deutsche Wohnen at the regional court in Berlin at the end of September.
The hedge fund originally wanted to prevent the number two among the German housing groups from helping the larger Vonovia to acquire a further six percent of Deutsche Wohnen shares through a capital increase and the sale of its own shares. According to its own information, the hedge fund holds 3.2 percent of Deutsche Wohnen and accuses the board of a conflict of interest in the € 19 billion takeover.
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