Sponda - Company Announcement

Sponda acquires six properties in the Forum block in Helsinki and plans a rights offering

Sponda Plc            Stock Exchange Release 4 February 2015 at 8:25 a.m.

Sponda acquires six properties in the Forum block in Helsinki and plans a
rights offering 

Sponda Plc has today signed agreements with Forum Fastighets Kb and Föreningen
Konstsamfundet r.f. on the acquisition of the shares in Ab Mercator Oy, which
owns six properties in central Helsinki, as well as the shares in Ab Forum
Capita Oy, which manages the properties in question. The total debt-free price
of the entities being acquired is approximately EUR 576 million, to be paid in
cash. The estimated net yield after the first year is approximately 4.9%. The
purchase price is conditional on balance sheet adjustments and other standard
adjustments made after an acquisition. 

With the acquisition, Sponda continues the successful implementation of its
strategy by increasing the share of office and shopping centre properties,
which are its focus areas, in its property portfolio and focusing even more
strongly on prime areas in Helsinki’s central business district. 

The acquired properties

The acquisition comprises a total of six prime properties in the Forum block,
including the Forum shopping centre and office premises. Of the properties’
total leasable area of 76,918 m2, some 48% is retail premises and 41% office
premises, while 11% is storage space and other utility space. 

Served by excellent transport connections, the properties are located in a
prime area in central Helsinki and they provide attractive premises for both
retail and office use. Forum is one of Finland’s largest and busiest shopping
centres, with nearly 14 million visitors per year¹. The shopping centre
includes a total of about 140 shops with combined annual sales of approximately
EUR 200 million¹. The largest shops in the shopping centre include H&M,
Gigantti and Stadium. Over EUR 50 million was invested in the shopping centre’s
expansion and improvement project carried out in 2012–2015, which involved
modernisation of the premises, improvements to energy efficiency and the
addition of some 8,000 m2 of retail space. The properties have some 55 office
tenants. The largest tenants include Mehiläinen and Hufvudstadsbladet. The
majority of the premises have been recently renovated and they meet modern
requirements to an excellent degree. 

The total revenue of the property was approximately EUR 36.6 in 2015. Due to
the expansion and improvement project completed in 2015, the premises were not
in full use for the entire year 2015. The current occupancy rate corresponds to
a total revenue of approximately EUR 37.7 million in 2016. 

The properties being acquired, their leasable areas and their occupancy rates
based on square metres are as follows: 

Address of the property              Leasable area,          Occupancy rate
                                                 m²  based on square metres
                                                        31 December 2015, %
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mannerheimintie 14                           16,790                    96.2
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mannerheimintie 16 and Yrjönkatu 23          11,016                    98.2
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mannerheimintie 18                            7,699                    89.6
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mannerheimintie 20                           22,066                   100.0
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yrjönkatu 29                                 11,955                    96.5
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yrjönkatu 31 and Simonkatu 8                  7,393                    89.3
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total                                        76,918                    96.3
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

¹ Covers the entire Forum shopping centre and includes six retail premises in a
property owned by Maalaistentalo Oy, which is not included in the acquisition. 

President and CEO Kari Inkinen

“We are very satisfied with this acquisition, which represents an excellent
step forward in the implementation of Sponda’s strategy. This acquisition is a
perfect fit with our current strategy of increasing the share of shopping
centres and office properties in our portfolio, while also increasingly
focusing our property ownership on the prime area in Helsinki’s central
business district. 

The financing of the acquisition

Sponda will finance the acquisition with its existing cash funds and a
short-term bridge loan of approximately EUR 300 million. The company plans to
arrange a rights offering to maintain its current capital structure and equity
ratio following the transaction. 

Sponda’s Board of Directors will convene an Extraordinary General Meeting to
decide on the planned rights issue. Sponda’s Board of Directors is expected to
decide on the size, timing and terms of the rights issue based on the
authorisation of the General Meeting. The invitation to the Extraordinary
General Meeting to decide on the authorisation of the Board of Directors will
be published later today. The conclusion of the acquisition is not contingent
on the realisation of the rights issue. 

Approval and schedule of the transaction

Sponda expects that the transaction will be concluded by the end of February
2016, once the standard conditions for acquisitions are satisfied. 



Sponda Plc
Kari Inkinen





For further information, please contact:
Kari Inkinen, President and CEO, +358 400 402 653
Pia Arrhenius, SVP, Corporate Planning and IR, +358 40 527 4462





Sponda Plc is a property investment company specialising in commercial
properties in the largest cities in Finland. Sponda’s business concept is to
own, lease and develop retail and office properties and shopping centres into
environments that promote the business success of its clients. The fair value
of Sponda’s investment properties is approximately EUR 3.2 billion and the
leasable area is around 1.2 million m2.