Echo shares sell like hot cakes
Investment & financeThe company is planning to purchase eight properties this year. The company sold app. 71.5 mln shares at EUR 1.45 per share to selected investors raising EUR 100 mln. Currently EPP’s shares are quoted on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. “EPP’s entry on the stock exchanges in Luxembourg and Johannesburg should provide the company with much better access to capital for its development and guarantee its current and future shareholders with the opportunity to invest on the highly attractive European market,” argues Hadley Dean, president of EPP. Echo Polska Properties (EPP) is owned by Echo Investment and South-African fund Redefine Properties, which holds a strategic stake of 49.9 pct of the company’s share capital. Redefine Properties recently acquired the Pivotal fund and refinanced a debt of EUR 150 mln used for the purchase of EPP with an issue of convertible bonds. Griffin Real Estate fund, which manages assets of Redefine Properties in Poland, organised and advised on the purchase of the EPP shares. EPP currently has a portfolio of six office properties and ten commercial properties with a gla of 466,400 sqm. The company is also targeting new properties. EPP has already reached an agreement with Echo Investment and Griffin and could acquire eight further properties by December 1st.
From Griffin it is to purchase for EUR 84 mln 70 pct of the shares in a company that is to build a huge commercial project on a 6.5 ha plot at ul. Towarowa 22 in Warsaw’s Wola district. According to EPP’s prospectus, an office, residential, retail and service complex could be built with a combined area of app. 250,000 sqm. However the company wants to change the land development conditions so tha a 110,000 sqm shopping centre could be built. The project, which is to be designed by the Kuryłowicz & Associates is slated for completion in 2020. EPP is also planning to buy three stages of the O3 Business Campus office complex in Kraków from Echo Investment as well as two stages of the Symetris office complex in Łódź, the third stage of the A4 Business Park office centre in Katowice and the Tryton Business Park in Gdańsk. On June 30th, 2016 the properties were estimated to be worth nearly EUR 150 mln. After the completion of construction work and the lease of the office buildings currently under construction EPP estimates the total will be worth EUR 254 mln.
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