MEC METRO-ECE Centermanagement GmbH & Co. KG
Dreieich Nordpark
Two leading German crowdinvesting companies specializing in real estate plan to merge, to create a new digital platform which they claim will give them a market share in the growing segment of about 85%.
Market leader Exporo and Zinsland, both based in Hamburg, are in the top league of digital property investment and finance their deals with money from large numbers of small investors. The new platform, Caladio, will dominate the real estate crowd investing market, with Exporo providing the lion’s share of the business and retaining naming rights over the new merged entity.
Exporo is by far the strongest partner of the two, and based on the number of projects financed in the first six months of this year, can justifiably claim a market share in Germany of 68%, compared to Zinsland’s 14%. Other competitors in the space include platforms such as Bergfürst, Home Rocket and Engel & Völkers Capital, all with even smaller market shares. The merger of the two companies and ensuing synerges is likely to given even more market power to Exporo.
The companies say the platform will cover finance structuring and ongoing reporting both for project developers and banks, with Zinsland’s investors continuing to be supported via Caladio. The merger and new Caladio platform will create a workforce of nearly 200 employees.
According to Carl von Stechow, founder of Zinsland, “The merger is the logical next step for both sides. Five years ago, we launched in Hamburg as neighbours with the same vision. Now we want to pool our resources and look forward to benefiting from each other’s experience and strengths.”
Earlier this summer, Exporo raised €43m in its latest financing round, which also introduced French company Partech Growth to the ranks of its shareholders. At the time the founders still held 30% of the shares, while other shareholders included E.Ventures, Holtzbrinck Ventures, BPO Capital and Heartcore (ex-Sunstone). The latest fundraising valued Exporo at about €150m.
Simon Brunke, Exporo’s CEO and Co-Founder, said: “Together we are one step closer to our vision of one million European digital property investors and we will now work together to make property simple, transparent and digitally accessible to everyone.” The current number of individual Exporo investors is thought to be about 20,000, who have crowdfunded nearly €500m of project developments, so there’s still quite a way to go. The corresponding figure for Zinsland is about €90m
Still, the market for crowdfunding real estate projects in Germany is growing fast, and is estimated to have grown in the first half of 2019 by more that 63% over last year, to about €155m (or higher, when taking private placements into account).
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German real estate investor Redos has officially notified antitrust authorities about its intention to buy Metro's <B4B.DE> loss-making Real hypermarket chain, people close to the matter said, in a sign that the deal is nearing completion.
Once a sprawling retail conglomerate, Metro has in recent years been restructuring to focus on its core cash-and-carry business, selling off the Kaufhof department stores and then splitting from consumer electronics group Ceconomy <CECG.DE>.
It has long sought to shed its Real hypermarkets chain, which has annual sales of more than 7 billion euros (6.24 billion pounds) but has struggled for years in a fiercely competitive German market, dominated by discounters Aldi and Lidl.
Metro entered exclusives talks with Redos in May and initially agreed to complete talks by the end of July but then extended that deadline to September.
The timeline was delayed to give a rival suitor, a consortium comprising property investor X+Bricks and SCP Group, the chance of making a bid for Real.
Redos aims to buy Real as a going concern but wants to sell some stores to competitors, with German chains, such as Edeka, Rewe and Kaufland, seen as possible buyers.
The investment vehicle of Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky, who failed last month in a bid to buy Metro for 5.8 billion euros , has criticised Metro's plan to sell Real to Redos, saying the price was too low.
Metro declined to comment, while Redos was not immediately available for comment.
