Real Estate

Business park group CTP raises €854m in Amsterdam IPO


Business park group CTP has added to the string of initial public offerings in Amsterdam this year, raising €854m through a stock market listing on the Euronext exchange.

CTP, which is domiciled in the Netherlands but headquartered in Prague, priced its IPO of 61m new shares — 15.4 per cent of shares outstanding after the offering — at €14 each on Thursday, valuing the company at €5.6bn.

The listing is the latest deal in a flurry of equity market activity across Europe this year as investors’ focus shifts from companies that have benefited from the boom in online shopping and homeworking to other parts of the economy.

The region has notched up the best start to a year for new listings in 20 years, with €17.3bn raised through listings in 2021, compared with €18.6bn raised in 2000, according to Refinitiv data.

London has remained home to the most money raised, despite Amsterdam’s emergence as one of the early winners of Brexit.

Column chart of Amount raised by IPOs listed on European stock exchanges (€bn) showing European IPOs reach 20-year record volumes

The Dutch city has scooped up London’s share trading and carbon trading volumes in the wake of Britain’s decision to leave the EU while the Euronext exchange’s flexible listing rules have encouraged executives to list their special purpose acquisition vehicles there too.

Polish parcel locker business InPost, which listed in Amsterdam, has been Europe’s biggest IPO so far this year, a crown that food delivery service Deliveroo is set to take next week with its £8.8bn London listing.

Bar chart of Amount raised by IPOs per stock exchange (€bn) showing London remains Europe's most popular IPO destination

CTP, which builds and operates business parks in seven countries in central Europe, also has an “overallotment option” to sell a further 9m shares if there is sufficient demand. If exercised in full, the size of the offering would increase to €982m, and the free float to 17.7 per cent.

Shares in the company were flat in lunchtime trading in their public debut on Thursday.

Remon Vos, chief executive, who founded CTP in 1998 and will control 82 per cent of the company after the listing if the overallotment option is exercised, said the proceeds would be used to accelerate CTP’s growth and to pay down some of its debt.

“Our core business is central Europe and that is where the income-producing part of the portfolio is located, that’s also where most of the growth is. So that’s the focus,” he told the Financial Times.

“But we are also very entrepreneurial and . . . it does happen that tenants ask us to provide property solutions where we are not active, and we have carefully and very seriously decided to look closer at the Austrian market, especially in and around Vienna,” he said, adding that the company has also initiated activities in the Netherlands.

Despite the pandemic, CTP, whose parks include everything from back-office operations to distribution centres for logistics groups, posted adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of €239.5m in 2020, up 12 per cent from €214.5m in 2019.



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