France’s Covivio makes full €700m takeover offer for Godewind

French real estate group Covivio is making a full takeover offer for all the shares in German listed office property company Godewind, in a bid to gain a serious foothold in the German office market. The Frankfurt-based Godewind’s management board and supervisory board have both given their blessing to the €700m proposed deal.

If the deal goes ahead, Convivio, through its subsidiary Covivio X-Tend AG, will acquire a core portfolio of 10 offices buildings (290,000 m²) valued at €1.2bn.  The properties are located in Frankfurt (40% of the portfolio), Düsseldorf (28%), Hamburg (24%) and Munich (8%), which are are among the Top 10 biggest European offices markets alongside Paris, Berlin and Milan, where Covivio is already active.

Covivio is offering each shareholder of Godewind €6.40 per share in cash, a premium of 33% over the average share price for the last three months, and about 60% more than the price at which Godewind floated on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in April 2018. The French company said it has also secured up to 35% of Godewind’s fully-diluted share capital, in the form of commited shares owned by CEO Stavros Efremidis and Supervisory Board member Karl Ehlerding.

With the approval of the Cartel Office, the tender offer and acceptance period should be concluded by end-March, with Godewind being de-listed by end-May.

Covivio’s German portfolio will then have offices valued at €2.1bn in the biggest cities - 38% of assets by value, including the development project of a mixed-use tower of 60,000 m² at Alexanderplatz), Frankfurt (23%), Düsseldorf (16%), Hamburg (14%) and Munich (7%).

Covivio emerged out of the fusion between French group Foncière des Régions with German group Immeo. All told, Covivio owns about 40,000 residential units in Germany, along with office properties in France and Italy