ActivumSG exits Instone Real Estate in sudden block sale

The Jersey-based real estate fund manager ActivumSG Capital Management sold its entire remaining stake in listed German residential developer Instone earlier this month.

ActivumSG said its managed funds sold the 18.3m bearer shares representing 50% of Instone for €413m in a ‘block sale’ to Deutsche Bank, which subsequently offered them to institutional investors. Reports suggest that Deutsche Bank failed to place all the shares after failing to find buyers for €175m of the stake it bought, and has been left holding 22% of the company. The bank now becomes one of Instone’s biggest shareholders until it disposes of the stake.

Earlier this year Instone floated on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, and it currently has a market capitalisation of around €791.6m. The sale will increase the free float significantly and contribute to increased liquidity in the Instone shares, ActivumSG said.

ActivumSG, headed by founder and ex-Cerberus top manager Saul Goldstein, bought a majority stake in Instone in December 2015, when the company was known as GRK Holding. It later merged with residential developer Formart to become Instone Real Estate Group.

The Essen-based Instone, with nearly 240 employees in seven offices across Germany, has been planning, building and marketing more than 1,000 residential units annually for owner-occupiers, for private buy-to-let, and for institutional investors, focusing on Germany's key metropolitan regions. Its project pipeline is currently valued at more than €3.6bn, with 44 development projects totaling nearly 9,000 planned residential units.