The market turmoil over recent days has led Western Australia-based property fund manager Primwest (ASX:PWG) to defer a $288 million commercial property listing on the ASX.
Primewest has been on a roll since its own $100 million IPO in November, growing assets under management (AUM) by $163 million.
Founded by by John Bond, Jim Litis and David Schwartz (pictured left to right), the group was planning to launch a Primewest Commercial REIT.
The IPO would have been backed by four office buildings worth $285 million that are currently held in single-asset funds managed by the company, and underlying fund investors have overwhelmingly voted in its favour.
But given the uncertainty around the current market conditions, the Primewest board has formed the view that the deferral of the IPO is in the best interests of both existing and potential new investors.
"Whilst market conditions are not conducive to pursuing the IPO at this stage, we continue to believe that the establishment of PCR is an attractive investment proposition for existing and new investors and we will reconsider the IPO when conditions improve," says executive chairman John Bond, son of Alan Bond.
Schwartz says Primewest would like to thank its investors for supporting the proposed transaction.
"Primewest remains well capitalised and has $80m in cash and no debt. We are monitoring the market and will look to deploy this cash opportunistically to take advantage of the current market dislocation," he says.
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