List of bidders narrows for €2.4bn BayernLB sale

Bayerische Landesbank (BayernLB) has nominated at least four companies to make second-round bids for its 32,000-unit GBW housing division, REFIRE understands, in what is likely to be the largest property sale in Germany for the last five years.

Those in contention include Austria’s Conwert Immobilien Invest SE and Immofinanz AG, Augsburg-based Patrizia Immobilien AG, and a group of Bavarian municipalities bidding as Wohnen in Bayern. BayernLB is thought to want to complete the sale by the end of April.

BayernLB, the second-biggest state-owned lender in Germany, was ordered by the European Union to sell its 92% stake in GBW by the end of 2013 after receiving state aid to bail it out during the credit crisis in 2008. Last year it sold its DKB Immobilien AG property unit to listed TAG Immobilien for €160m.

The GBW 2011 annual report says it has about €1.4bn in debt, putting its net asset value at about €950m. The sale would be the biggest residential property deal in Germany since Goldmans Sachs bought the LEG housing unit from the state of North Rhine Westphalia in 2008