PCP Capital Partners is advising a consortium of Middle Eastern investors that is preparing a £1.2bn bid for Land Securities Trillium, increasing the likelihood that the business will be sold.
PCP Capital, a Dubai-based private equity firm that advises sovereign wealth investors across the Middle East, is working with fund manager aAIM on a potential bid for the outsourcing arm of Britain’s largest property company.
It is thought that the consortium will lodge a bid for Trillium if LandSecs decides that offers from other parties are too low.
Lend Lease and a consortium of Goldman Sachs, Telereal and Macquarie are thought to have submitted bids on the offical deadline of 27 June, but they are thought to have come in at a maximum of £1.1bn.
Amanda Staveley, who is advising Dubai Investment Capital in negotiations on a bid for Liverpool Football Club, is working on the Trillium offer for the Gulf consortium.
An offer of £1.2bn would be less than the £1.4bn valuation LandSecs, which is being advised by UBS, has put on Trillium. However, analysts have valued Trillium between £1.2bn and £1.5bn, and City sources suggest that the board would be willing to negotiate and work with bidders at the bottom end of that spectrum.
LandSecs will publish an interim management statement next Wednesday, in which it is expected to announce that it has received more than one bid for Trillium, and that it is considering its options regarding a sale. However, no decision on a sale will be announced then, or at the company’s annual meeting the next day.
As revealed in Property Week, the consortium of Gulf investors, AAIM, and Vincent Tchenguiz's Consensus Business Group had expressed an interest in making a bid for Trillium around a month before the final deadline for bids on 27 June. It did not submit a bid before this date because it did not have enough time to analyse the complex information on Trillium’s revenue streams and make a proper proposal.
However, LandSecs and UBS gave the consortium extra time in the dataroom that had been set up, to see if it would come up with a bid closer to its own valuation.
The waters have been muddied by the fact that Consensus are not closely involved with the new offer, but are thought to have a legal agreement with aAIM that one cannot submit a bid without the other.
LandSecs is running the sale in conjunction with its demerger process, which will see it split into separate-listed retail and London-office focused property companies. If offers for Trillium are too low, it will demerge and list the division separately.
Land Securities, AAIM, and Consensus declined to comment.
No comments yet