Slovenian real estate investment and management company Equinox is set to list on the Ljubljana Stock Exchange on Jan 31, it said.
The Ljubjana-based company will become the first real estate joint-stock company to join the bourse and will also become a member of EPRA, the European Public Real Estate Association.
With more than 280 members, covering the whole spectrum of the listed real estate industry (companies, investors and their suppliers), EPRA represents over EUR 690 billion of real estate assets and 94% of the market capitalisation of the FTSE EPRA Nareit Europe Index.
Equinox’s portfolio includes hotel and business real estate in central Ljubljana with a total area ofover 65,000 square metres, with an estimated value of about 101 million euro. Among the properties owned by EQUINOX are Grand Hotel Union, Hotel Lev, The Fuzzy Log, uHotel, Fashion House business building, Kompas, Nomago and Delo business premises.
The initial value of Equinox’s shares will be between their book value and fair value, estimated on the basis of the assets owned by the company.
“This is an important milestone opening a new investment class which offers new opportunities for enrichment of funds to the widest circle of investors in our market” Equinox CEO Matej Rigelnik said at a news conference.
Equinox is also especially proud of the fact that the lion’s share of profits will be used to pay annual dividends to shareholders.
Equinox aims to be the largest real estate company in the organised capital market in Slovenia, Rigelnik said.
Aleš Ipavec, President of the Management Board of the Ljubljana Stock Exchange stated: “EQUINOX is a harbinger of a new era. For the first time in our country, a company does not enter the stock exchange due to privatization, but it is a decision of private owners to come to the stock exchange and offer the company’s shares, which is certainly a bright exception. The path was not the easiest and shortest, so I congratulate everyone involved in this story for their courage, and I also thank them for their trust in the Ljubljana Stock Exchange.”
The company, which initially planned to enter the Slovenian bourse in the autumn of last year, then moved the timeline to the beginning of 2022 also due to the complex procedures that accompanied this type of operation in the market.
Slovenia’s Securities Market Agency approved on January 13 a prospectus for the listing of 1,793,869 Equinox shares on the standard quotation segment of the Ljubljana Stock Exchange. The entire procedure with the regulator took place under the auspices of the NLB, Slovenia’s largest bank.
