Insurance firm Phoenix Life is to sell up to £30m of shares in real estate fund UK Commercial Property Trust.
The shareholder will sell the shares at a price of 69p. The holding represents around 3.6% of the £790m trust’s share issue.
The price represents a discount of 5.5% to the company’s closing middle market price of 73p as at 14 March 2012 and a discount of 7% to the 31 December 2011 NAV of 74.19p.
The placing is being conducted through an accelerated bookbuild which will be launched immediately and will be run by JP Morgan Cazenove.
Phoenix, which holds around 30% of the UK Commercial Property Trust, said it did not currently intend to make any further significant disposals of its ordinary shares and has agreed to enter into a lock-up arrangement with JP Morgan Cazenove for a period of six months with respect to its residual holdings in the company.
In 2009, Phoenix sold a £146m portfolio of property to the fund and in 2010 participated in a £150m equity raising, acquiring around £50m of shares.
UK Commercial Property Trust is managed by Ignis Asset Management.
samantha.mcclary@estatesgazette.com
