Comment in relation to the completion of Vonovia’s acquisition of shares in Hembla and Vonovia’s mandatory cash offer to the shareholders of Hembla
On 23 September 2019, Hembla AB (publ) (“Hembla”) announced that they had been informed that Vonovia SE, through its indirectly wholly-owned subsidiary HomeStar InvestCo AB (“Vonovia”), had entered into an agreement with Hembla’s largest shareholder Vega Holdco S.à r.l., an entity wholly owned by real estate funds advised by The Blackstone Group Inc. (“Blackstone”), whereby Vonovia acquired Blackstone’s shares in Hembla.
Hembla notes that Vonovia today, on 7 November 2019, has announced that the acquisition of shares has been completed and that Vonovia now holds 71.69% of the votes and 64.21% of the total number of shares in Hembla.(1) Through the completion of the acquisition of shares, Vonovia holds more than 30% of the votes in Hembla. As such, Vonovia has an obligation under Chapter 3 Section 1 of the Swedish Takeover Act (2006:451) to announce this circumstance and to launch a mandatory cash offer to Hembla’s shareholders to transfer the remaining shares in Hembla to Vonovia (the “Offer”). Today’s press release published by Vonovia constituted such an announcement.
For more information about the Offer and its conditions, please see Vonovia’s press release published today on 7 November 2019, as well as the complete offer document which is expected to be published on 8 November 2019. These documents will be made available on the Offer section of Vonovia’s webpage: https://en.vonovia-h.de/websites/1033_ma/English/1000/announcements.html.
The independent bid committee will evaluate the Offer and intends to revert with its statement regarding the Offer and reasons therefor no later than two weeks prior to the expiry of the acceptance period for the Offer. The acceptance period is expected to commence on 11 November 2019 and end on 9 December 2019.
Stockholm on 7 November 2019
Hembla AB (publ)
The board of directors
(1) Based on a total of 92,924,306 outstanding shares in the Company.
For further information, please contact
Patrick Forslund, board member and chairman of the independent committee, phone +46 720 62 60 54
The information was released for publication on 7 November 2019 at 17.30 (CET).
About Hembla
Hembla is a property company focusing on residential properties in the Greater Stockholm region and other growth areas. The company’s business concept is to own property portfolios slated for a gradual renovation of apartments in conjunction with the natural turnover of tenants. This can take place quickly and cost-efficiently thanks to extensive experience from the company's renovation method which, among other things, means that no evacuation needs to take place. In addition to this, the company creates value through the development of building rights in existing portfolios. The market value of the company’s properties amounted to SEK 33,508 million on 30 September 2019. The total rental value amounted to SEK 1,967 million annually on 30 September 2019. The economic occupancy rate is high – vacancies are virtually non-existent. Hembla is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm.