A real estate firm set to list its shares on the Swiss market is mothballing the move, blaming market vagaries.
Epic would have been the third initial public offering on Switzerland's stock exchange this year: the 16-year-old company had planned to take in as much as 200 million Swiss francs ($216 million) in fresh capital by issuing shares, valuing the real estate investor at as much as 800 million francs.
It is now delaying those plans due to market turbulence, it said in a brief emailed statement on Tuesday. «Epic Suisse AG and UBS as sole global coordinator and joint bookrunner of the IPO have jointly decided to postpone the planned initial public offering of Epic due to market conditions,» the company said.
Real Estate Boom
Despite the coronavirus crisis, real estate investments have boomed with institutional as well as private investors, who aren't getting the failsafe yields they are accustomed to from traditional markets. Massive central bank interventions to cushion from economic shocks have rendered interest rates persistently in low or negative territory.
«Epic intends to continue monitoring and evaluating the market environment in general and opportunities regarding an IPO in the future,» it said. The company said last week none of its portfolio properties defaulted since the pandemic's outbreak.
