Colonial & Axiare Formally Approve Their €11bn Merger

24 May 2018 – Eje Prime

Colonial and Axiare are on the verge of merging. Yesterday (Thursday), the General Shareholders’ Meeting of the Catalan Socimi approved the firm’s merger with Axiare, in an operation that is expected to close during the second half of the year and which will give rise to the largest office building rental company in Spain, a real estate giant with asset worth €11 billion.

The integration is a consequence of the takeover bid that Colonial launched over Axiare at the end of last year to acquire the share capital that it did not own in the Socimi, of which it was already the largest shareholder. The real estate company led by Pere Viñolas purchased 86.8% of the Socimi’s share capital in the end. To obtain the remaining 13.2%, it offered a share exchange deal at a ratio of 1.8554 own shares for each Axiare share.

Colonial also subjected the capital increase necessary to undertake this exchange to its General Shareholders’ Meeting, held on Thursday. With this merger, the real estate company chaired by Juan José Brugera seeks “to consolidate” its position in the prime office sector and “to respond to the current challenges in the real estate sector by strengthening its competitive position and achieving greater size and more efficiency in the business in Spain”.

Nevertheless, it does not rule out that the integration may also generate “duplications and incoherencies” in the resulting workforce, in which case, it plans to undertake adjustments over the coming months.

Axiare will, in turn, give its “approval” to the integration at its General Shareholders’ Meeting today, 25 May, where it will also ratify the Transition Board of Directors, comprising independent members, which Colonial appointed following the takeover.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake