The Special Opportunities Reit is seeking to raise £500m in what will be the first investment trust IPO of the year.
The trust, which will invest in “high-quality properties” being sold by “distressed and/or highly motivated sellers”, will close applications for IPO on 11 June, before it seeks to list on the London Stock Exchange six days later.
It will be run by the former management team of LXI Reit, which merged with Londonmetric Property earlier this year.
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Commitments totalling between £104m and £119m have already been received from three cornerstone investors – GoldenTree Asset Management, TR Property Investment Trust and other Columbia Threadneedle investments funds, and the Bhavnani family office.
Simon Lee, CEO of Special Opportunities Reit and former co-manager of LXI Reit, said: “We are really excited at the prospect of admitting Special Opportunities Reit plc to the London Stock Exchange.
“We expect to deliver attractive crystalised returns to shareholders through investing, at what we believe is the bottom of the UK real estate market cycle and with a unique set of circumstances, in very high-quality properties being sold by distressed or highly motivated sellers, often at prices less than their already depressed current market values.
“We have used our extensive industry relationships to establish an attractive and deep short-term pipeline of high-quality portfolio and single asset deals against which we expect to deploy the net IPO proceeds within six months.”
