Aedifica Pre-notification ends, approval within 55 business days

Yesterday evening, Aedifica announced it has ended the pre-notification phase in the competitive approval process for its merger with Cofinimmo. This phase had already been postponed for 1 month at the end of September. Now, the college of the BCA can make a decision for approval within 55 business days, longer than the initial 40 days we were expecting as remedies have been submitted. If this is approved, the prospectus is filed with the FSMA. The first exchange period can likely open in February 2026. Aedifica submitted remedies of EUR 300.0m in Belgium which is higher than we were expecting. We were banking on EUR 200.0m which would represent 10 assets at the higher end of the guided range. We believe the issues are most likely in the Brussels region (unspecified) where the combination would hold approx. 44% of the private beds. We would expect a larger haircut on these disposals but don't see it as a dealbreaker given the EUR +/- 12.bn size of the combined portfolios. Hold rating reiterated at EUR 70.0 TP.
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