The Sunday Times - June 24, 2007
The German retail and leisure group that owns a majority stake in Thomas Cook, Karstadtquelle, has appointed bankers to sell off its €5.5 billion (£3.7 billion) property portfolio, in one of Europe’s biggest retail property disposals.
The company has hired NM Rothschild and Goldman Sachs to sell off its real-estate assets, ahead of a possible London listing next year. It is expected the sale will generate strong interest from property companies and investment groups in Britain seeking to buy into the recovering German retail market.
The portfolio includes a string of flagship department stores in Germany including the giant KaDeWe shop in Berlin.
The property portfolio was injected into a joint venture with Whitehall, a division of Goldman Sachs, in March 2006. That deal netted Karstadtquelle €3.7 billion, which was used to pay down group debt. The Germans own 49% of the joint venture and Whitehall owns 51%.
Karstadtquelle’s decision to appoint bankers to sell off the portfolio comes after reports from Germany earlier this year that it has received unsolicited approaches for the assets.
Earlier this week Thomas Mid-delhoff, Karstadtquelle’s chief executive, said the company was considering listing its shares in London because UK investors understood the business better than those in Frankfurt.
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