Swedish real estate company SBB is exploring its sale in the face of the crisis in the sector — idealista/news

2023-05-29 10:01:14

Swedish property fund SBB (Samhallsbyggnadsbolaget i Norden AB) has decided to consider various alternatives to maximize shareholder value, including the sale of the company or of specific business segments or assets, as well as other strategic transactions.

“The board believes that the inherent value of the shares in the business is significantly higher than the current market value of SBB,” the company has defended, after SBB’s share value has accumulated a drop of around 75% so far this year.

“SBB’s board has decided that it is in the interest of shareholders to broaden its review of strategic alternatives to determine which of the available alternatives maximizes shareholder value,” it explained.

Thus, the real estate company has hired JP Morgan Securities and Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB as financial advisors, while the firm Vinge has been hired as legal advisor.

SBB’s announcement comes after Fitch agency downgraded the company’s credit rating to junkdowngrading the debt to ‘BB+’ from ‘BBB-‘ with a negative outlook, after S&P Global also downgraded SBB to speculative grade in early May.

In this sense, as it had announced on May 8, the SBB board has confirmed that among the different strategic alternatives that it will analyze there is not the possibility of carrying out a new share issue.

Following the downgrade of S&P Global’s rating in early May, the real estate company announced a postponement of the expected dividend payment, as well as the cancellation of a rights issue for an amount of 2,630 million Swedish crowns (235 million euros) previously announced with the objective of strengthening its liquidity.

Subsequently, SBB completed the sale of the majority of its stake in Scandinavian building company JM in order to strengthen its liquidity and the company’s financial position.

Specifically, SBB sold 19 million JM shares, around 29.5% of the capital, at a unit price of 148.10 kroner, which represents an aggregate amount of about 2.8 billion kroner (249 million euros), assuming significant disabilities.