The financial investors who want to take over the Wiesbaden real estate financier Aareal-Bank have now done it again.

They are now offering shareholders EUR 31 per share instead of the EUR 29 previously offered.

This is an improvement of 7 percent, according to a statement from the bidder company Atlantic Bidco.

on Wednesday, for which the financial investors Advent and Centerbidge have joined forces.

Compared to the average share price in the three months before the bid was submitted, the price now represents a premium of 44 percent. Overall, they value the real estate financier listed in the M-Dax at 1.86 billion euros.

Tim Kanning

Editor in Business.

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The fact that Advent and Centerbridge, who want to take over Aareal-Bank together with CPPIB, would have to improve their offer again became apparent when the shareholders had not even tendered 20 percent of the shares by the end of the original deadline on January 19.

The bidders initially reacted by lowering their acceptance threshold from 70 to 60 percent, thereby also extending the offer period to February 2nd.

The increase that has now been announced is the next attempt to save the project, which has almost failed.

"This even more attractive offer price is final and there will be no further increase," they emphasized.

"Lousy deal for shareholders"

Above all, the two activist shareholders Petrus Advisers and Teleios, who are said to hold around 20 percent of the shares together, in part via options, have loudly announced that they expect a significantly higher offer. The tone between the financial investors is extremely sharp. Adam Epstein, co-founder of Teleios Capital, dismissed the improved offer on Wednesday: "We believe this token increase still represents a sweet deal for Advent and Centerbridge, and a lousy one for shareholders who expect a fair valuation." should wait," Epstein told Bloomberg. "We hope that others will follow our lead and ignore them," Epstein added.

Till Hufnagel, partner at Petrus Advisers, told the Reuters news agency that Aareal Bank was "significantly undervalued" even with the new offer.

Shortly after the original offer period expired last week, the financial investor had already published a letter with the headline: "Failure means Advent/Centerbridge".

On the one hand, Petrus sees the low acceptance rate as proof that the shareholders of aareal-Bank apparently value more than Advent and Centerbridge want to pay.

On the other hand, it is a "clear sign of the shareholders' lack of trust in the management of Aareal", which had repeatedly spoken out in favor of the takeover bid.

Differences between the Aareal owners and the takeover aspirants exist, among other things, about what should happen to the IT subsidiary Aareon.

The letter from the bidder company states that the investors have already paid 31 euros for shares.

and they have therefore now increased the offer for all shareholders.

However, the financial investors did not provide any details on who they bought shares from for EUR 31.