Newly-public Instone to develop listed Halle space for residential

Instone Real Estate has acquired a former tea trading headquarters in Halle an der Saale that it plans to convert into more than 100 apartments for an undisclosed sum, it announced this week.

Around two thirds of the apartments in the 6,100 sqm industrial ‘T Kontor’ space will comprise homes of between 40 sqm and 60 sqm. There will also be some larger, family-oriented apartments. Construction is due to start this autumn.‘In the greater Halle-Leipzig area, there is high demand for small to medium-sized apartments that provide a high level of flexibility, but also high living and housing standards,’ said Torsten Kracht, CSO of Instone Real Estate Group.

The complex was built at the end of the 19th century by Carl Wilhelm Caesar and Otto Lorenz to trade and process tea, and was later used by the wholesale tea and pharmaceuticals businesses. The historic brick building in the style of an Italian Renaissance palazzo fell into disuse in the late 1990s and is a listed building.

‘With our ‘T.Kontor’ apartments, we want to create an attractive, contemporary residential offer that appeals above all to students, singles and commuters, but also to young families,’ said Roman Richter, senior sales manager at Instone Real Estate in Leipzig.

Earlier this month, Instone Real Estate listed in the Prime Standard of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The Essen-based company's shares opened trading at €21.50, following an issue price of €21.50.

Instone placed 19.9 million shares, including a greenshoe option, of which seven million were new shares and the rest from fund holdings by private equity owner ActivumSG Capital Management. It had initially said investors would be offered up to a total 23.4 million shares. Up to 54% of Instone shares will be freely traded following the flotation, which raises around €428m, thereby giving the company a market capitalisation of around €795m. Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse organised the flotation of Instone alongside Morgan Stanley, BNP Paribas and Unicredit. Lilja acted as IPO advisor.

ActivumSG Capital Management became the sole owner of Instone Real Estate in late 2017 with the acquisition of Instone founder and shareholder Steffen Göpel's stake in the German residential developer. At the time, the company was known as GRK Holding and was later merged with developer Formart under the brand of Instone Real Estate Group. (ssk)