FRANKFURT (Reuters) -German real estate group LEG Immobilien said on Wednesday it would not exercise an option to buy further shares in property investor BCP from rival Adler, which was pursuing the transaction to reduce its debt load.
Adler said in May it expected LEG to go ahead with buying its remaining 63% stake in BCP, which owns about 12,000 apartments in Germany, before the deadline in September.
Germany’s financial regulator this week said that Adler overstated the value of one of its projects by up to 233 million euros ($239 million).
In a bid to reduce debt, Adler had already sold roughly 30,000 apartments – nearly half of its portfolio – and other assets between late 2021 and early 2022. This included the sale of a 6.8% stake in BCP to LEG with an option to buy the rest.
(Reporting by Ludwig Burger; Editing by Leslie Adler and Deepa Babington)
