The battle for control of Investa Office Fund (ASX: IOF) has taken a new turn with major securityholder Investa Commercial Property Fund (ICPF) indicating that it intends to vote against Blackstone’s offer to takeover IOF at $5.1485 per unit. ICPF currently owns 19.95% of the units in IOF and it has further advised that it intends to sell a 9.99% stake in IOF for a higher price of $5.25 to Oxford Properties Group, should the takeover by Blackstone not proceed. Oxford Properties is owned by the OMERS Canadian pension fund.
The announcement comes amidst a flurry of activity which saw Macquarie Real Estate take a 50% stake in the Investa Office Management Platform, which reduced ICPF’s position, no longer classifying it as an associate entity, and thereby providing it with the ability to vote on the Blackstone offer. The meeting to vote on the takeover has been moved to 29 August 2018 (previously 21 August 2018) as a result of this. The proposal by Blackstone is via a Scheme which requires 75% acceptance to proceed. As such, the news that ICPF will vote its 19.95% against the offer, will place doubts over whether the offer will be successful in its current form, and possibly place pressure on Blackstone to increase its price. In the meantime, IOF has traded lower than the takeover price, as uncertainty prevails over the likely success of the takeover and whether Blackstone will increase its offer or not.
ASX reporting season continued with results released from GPT Group (ASX: GPT), Centuria Capital group (ASX: CNI), Propertylink Group (ASX: PLG), Dexus (ASX: DXS), Vicinity Centres (ASX: VCX), Charter Hall Retail REIT (ASX: CQR), Growthpoint Properties Australia (ASX: PLG) and Goodman Group (ASX: GMG).
Click here to view Core Property’s review of the results.