Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD), the investment arm of Dubai government, has not struck a deal for buying the Spanish property company Colonial because it did not succeed in reaching an agreement with the company's creditors, Reuters reported.
"We regret that, despite the best efforts of all the parties, no agreement could be reached," ICD chief executive officer Mohammed al-Shaibani said in a statement on March 20.
ICD tabled an offer last week to acquire the rental activities of Colonial at 1.19 euro a share, subject to conditions that needed to be met by March 20, Reuters wrote.
Shares in Inmobiliaria Colonial dropped almost 30 percent ICD and banks announced that they failed to agree a partial takeover bid for the Spanish property company.
ICD had offered to buy Colonial's profitable rental business for about 1.9 billion euro and take on most of its debt of 9 billion euros. But certain conditions, most of them concerning loans, were not met by the March 19 deadline.
It was the second ICD bid for Colonial to collapse in as many weeks and while the 82 billion dollar fund said it would be open to more talks, the market doubted a deal was possible.
Sources indicate that ICD demanded better terms on a 7.2 billion euro syndicated loan but the lead banks - Goldman Sachs, Royal Bank of Scotland, Eurohypo and Calyon – did not agree.
ABC newspaper reported that ICD and the syndicate banks could meet again on Monday – March 24.
Earlier this week, sources said the banks were warming to a deal with ICD rather than having to break up Colonial and sell assets. But on March 20 some sources said that Colonial would now have to negotiate with the banks itself.
However, ICD has left itself some space for negotiation. There are implications that negotiations could still be underway and that the whole story is yet to unravel.
Colonial owns the retail developer Riofisa SA, which it acquired in 2007 for two billion euro. The latter has two large projects in Bulgaria – the mixed-use Civis centre near Sofia’s central railway station, the first phase of which will cost more than 270 million euro alone, and a 175 million euro shopping centre in Plovdiv
Colonial also owns a 15 per cent stake in Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas, Spain's third-largest construction company, with a market value of 839 million euro, which will build Danube Bridge 2, linking Vidin and Bulgaria, and the adjacent infrastructure. The two projects are estimated to cost 162 million euro.
