BNS.MI - Beni Stabili Spa SIIQ

[Packer16]

I was looking at real estate companies in Europe selling at good sized discounts to NAV and ran across BNS.  It is selling at a 50% discount to NAV of Euro 0.95.  BNS owns property mainly in Milan and some in Rome and southern Italy.  It also has an asset management business and also has development projects in Milan.  In looking at the publicly traded real estate companies in Italy this was the largest and has a market cap of only Euro 939 million. 

 

Most of the real estate in Italy must be held privately.  I am wondering if a company like this could be a JV partner for a large fund or be in the middle of a bringing public alot of the privately held real estate similar to REITs in the US over the past 30 years.  An interesting value play with some option value upside.

 

Packer   

[jouni1]

these are just so hard for people who don't understand italy, myself included.

 

there was a thread few months back about investing in italian banks. if i remember correctly, every single one of the italian members said they wouldn't invest in them.

 

of course there is a good price for italian stocks too, but the uncertainty is just a bit much for me.

[phil_Buffett]

so they are trading for half of npv. but what could be a catalyst for them to realize a higher share Price?

[Spekulatius]

Looks interesting. FWIW, 80% of their operating profit is consumed by interest expense and they have a mountain of debt to refinance in Y2015. Their blended interest rate on their debt is ~4.6% right now and i wonder if this will go up:

http://www.benistabili.it/Investitori.aspx?prd=1940&lng=1

 

On another note - i own Vastned retail (a dutch Reit) as a RE investment. Rough numbers for Vastned - Share price ~32.5€. NAV ~46€. FFO ~2.8€, 7.5% dividend yield. Vastned is mainly invested in France, Benelux, Spain and Turkey

http://www.vastned.com/financial_information/key_figures/