US asset management giant Blackstone is poised to take control of Spanish listed residential firm Testa Residencial after having launched a €14.33 binding offer valuing the entire company at €1.9 bn.
In a statement to the stock market regulator CNMV, Testa announced on Monday that it has received the takeover bid from a unit of Blackstone called Tropic Real Estate Holding.
Shareholders including parent group Merlin Properties as well as banks BBVA and Santander, representing 50.01% of the firm's share capital, have already committed to accept the bid, which represents a small premium to Testa's latest closing price of €14 a share.
Testa Residencial is a major residential property owner in Spain, with a portfolio of 10,615 housing units and gross rents of €85 mln a year.
The operation is the latest by the US asset management group in Spain. Last year the group took over Spanish hotel REIT Hispania and completed the acquisition of a 51% stake in failed Spanish bank Banco Popular’s €30 bn portfolio of distressed loans and real estate assets.
Blackstone is also currently believed to be studying an offer for the Madrid head office of Spanish bank Santander, in what is expected to be Europe's largest single-asset deal of the year.
The US group is prepared to bid over €3 bn for the so-called Ciudad Financiera by a September 17 deadline for binding offers set by a Madrid court. It is already the owner of a chunk of the debt secured by the asset, having bought into the non-performing loans alongside US opportunistic investor Centerbridge and Avenue Capital back in 2011 from creditor banks Royal Bank of Scotland, Deutsche Postbank and Raffeisen Zentralbank at major discounts to face value.
Located in Madrid's Boadilla del Monte area, the trophy property totals over 400,000 m2 of building space and consists of nine three-storey buildings, dining facilities, a grand plaza, a training centre, hotel, sports facilities, day-care centre, 18-hole golf course and a 5,000-car parking facility.