Kempen & Co acted as Joint Global Coordinator and Joint Bookrunner in the €300 million Accelerated Bookbuild Offering of WDP
Transaction highlights
Capital increase via an accelerated bookbuilding of 12,931,035 new shares, corresponding to 6.8% of the company’s outstanding capital prior to the capital increase, at an issue price of €23.20 per share, generating gross proceeds of €300 million for Warehouses De Pauw (WDP)
The issue price of €23.20 per share represented a discount of 5.9% compared to the price of the WDP share immediately prior to suspension of trading on the launch day (€24.66 per share), and a premium of 5.5% to the 30 September EPRA NTA (€22.00 per share) reported earlier that day
The transaction was launched on the back of a selective market sounding exercise, which resulted in indications of interest in excess of the total deal size prior to launch
The order book was covered within 30 minutes post launch and the final order book was almost three times covered, with the majority of shares allocated to existing long-only shareholders and real estate specialist investors from continental Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States
Prior to launch, reference shareholder Jos De Pauw Family had expressed its intention to submit an order of €20 million, which was, as the total demand for the new shares was substantially greater than the envisaged transaction size, partially allocated in line with other long-only investors
WDP intends to use the proceeds to: (i) finance the accelerated realisation of its Energy as a Business strategy on top of the execution of its pipeline of pre-let real estate projects; (ii) maintain the current robust and liquid balance sheet in a volatile macroeconomic environment and rising interest rate climate, including a changed credit cycle; and (iii) have capacity to respond to investment opportunities in the current challenging environment
About Warehouses De Pauw
WDP is a Belgian Real Estate company specializing in industrial/logistics warehouses with properties located across Europe in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Romania, Luxembourg and Germany
The company has actively grown its portfolio over the past decade to €6.9 billion as per 30 September 2022
WDP is listed on Euronext Brussels and Euronext Amsterdam, with a pre-transaction market capitalization of €4.8 billion as of 18 October 2022
Kempen & Co Real Estate credentials
Kempen & Co has advised on Real Estate transactions in 15 different countries in Europe over the last 5 years
This transaction underpins our leading position in European Real Estate ECM since 2011 and the logistics sector in particular