CHSH Cerha Hempel Spiegelfeld Hlawati has advised IMMOFINANZ and BUWOG on capital market aspects and financing in connection with the IPO of BUWOG. IMMOFINANZ received corporate law advice from bpv Huegel, and Clifford Chance acted as international advisor.
IMMOFINANZ is the first Austrian-listed company to perform a spin-off. Under the spin-off, it parted with 51% of its shares in BUWOG. IMMOFINANZ shareholders automatically became BUWOG shareholders, receiving one BUWOG share in their securities accounts for every 20 shares they held in IMMOFINANZ. At the time of listing, the market capitalisation of BUWOG was just under EUR 1.4 billion. The spin-off was preceded by the acquisition of the residential real estate portfolio of BUWOG in Northern Germany for EUR 928 million. This acquisition was partly financed by the issuance of a EUR 260 million convertible bond of BUWOG.
In total, 51% of the 99,613,479 shares in BUWOG are now held in free float. BUWOG shares are listed on the Frankfurt, Vienna, and Warsaw stock exchanges. The portfolio of BUWOG includes assets worth in excess of EUR 3.5 billion.
British investment bank Barclays acted as the lead financial advisor for the spin-off. The bank consortium also consisted of Erste Bank Group, Baader Bank, Erste Securities Polska, Berenberg, and Raiffeisen Centrobank.
CHSH drafted the capital market prospectus for the listing of the BUWOG shares in Frankfurt, Vienna, and Warsaw and advised on the issuance of the EUR 260 million convertible bond of BUWOG. CHSH was also responsible for coordinating the stock exchange listing in Vienna, Frankfurt, and Warsaw and advised IMMOFINANZ in connection with a bridging loan.
Partners Volker Glas and Thomas Zivny and attorney Gernot Wilfling led the CHSH team working on the listing.
The bank consortium was advised as to Austrian law by Binder Grosswang, with Linklaters acting as international advisor.
