Hansteen amends terms of £25m property acquisition

Property trust Hansteen Holdings has revised the terms of its proposed takeover of fellow REIT, Industrial Multi Property Trust.

The Hansteen directors and their IMPT counterparts announced last month that they had reached agreement on the terms of a recommended all cash offer, which valued the latter at £25.3m.

As of 1pm March 22, Hansteen said had received valid acceptances of 2,500,657 IMPT shares, equivalent to 29.73% of the entire issued share capital.

In addition, Hansteen has acquired a further 1,836,075 shares – 21.83% – totalling 51.56% of the business.
In a market update, Hansteen said that in light of this it had decided to reduce the acceptance condition on the deal to 51%.

“In accordance with the level of acceptances set out, Hansteen is pleased to announce that the Acceptance Condition has been satisfied and, accordingly, the offer has become unconditional as to acceptance,” it said.

The offer will remain open for acceptances until further notice and Hansteen said that at least 14 days’ notice would be given before the offer was closed to those IMPT shareholders who had not accepted the offer.

“IMPT shareholders who have not yet accepted the offer are urged to do so without delay,” said Hansteen.

The move could circumvent any further problems Hansteen has been having with IMPT’s largest shareholder, Alpha Property Trust, which is opposing the deal because it claims the offer seriously undervalues the IMPT portfolio, which includes a number of sites in the Midlands.