Philippine magnate Andrew L. Tan, will take his Spanish real estate company to the Stock Exchange. Among its assets are three architectural icons of great value: the Emperor Castellana Tower and 49% of the adjoining Caleido in Madrid, and the Diagonal Tower in Barcelona. Between the three properties they can add an appraisal close to 900 million euros.
The businessman has converted his real estate branch Emperador Properties into a socimi (listed investment company in the real estate market). These types of companies are required to go public within two years after availing themselves of this special tax regime.
Specifically, Emperador Properties registered in the SOCIMI regime in the last tranche of last year, so it has the period of 2022 and the full term next year to meet the listing requirement. These types of companies have the advantage of not paying Corporation Tax in exchange, among other obligations, of listing and distributing 80% of their dividends among their shareholders (who do pay the treasury).
The company has not given details about its conversion into a socimi, since they assure that it is a plan within the current restructuring of the group in the country. “The company is currently immersed in a corporate reorganization process aimed at improving the investments of Mr. Tan's family office in Spain. With this strategy, Emperador Properties seeks to optimize the company's new investments and financial initiatives in the coming years. Within this plan, the IPO is not confirmed at this time”, they assure in writing to this newspaper.
Although the family office indicates that it has not yet been 100% decided whether the real estate company will finally debut on the stock market, the cases in which a socimi has failed to comply with the listing requirement are anecdotal and the Philippine billionaire's real estate company would have to regularize its situation with the Treasury of the years that it is operating under this fiscal figure if it does not comply with that obligation.
At the moment it is unknown which market the company plans to choose to list. It can select the continuous one –although this floor is usually reserved for large companies with a high free float–; or the most common BME Growth for family companies with few shareholders, or even Euronext in Paris. Since 2013, 122 Spanish Socimis have debuted, of which 95 preferred BME Growth and the rest Euronext.
