Adler/Aggregate - comments

The company today confirmed it will be repaying its €400m April bond on time. This should not be much news, but it does drive the share price. Also today, the FT ran another long article on Aggregate. The article brings to light a collection of similar natured transactions between 2015 and 2017, in which Aggregate have been lending and pledging Adler shares and convertible notes to parties involving shareholders of Mezzanine IX and Natig Ganiyev amongst others, in each case allowing the borrowers to obtain financing against those shares. The article leaves open what exactly happened to the proceeds from such financings, but going by smoke and mirrors, we observe that the Mezz IX parties are invested in Adler shares, whereas Ganiev’s various vehicles have bought assets from Adler (with €260m of payables still outstanding in H121). Much of these transactions should have unwound by now as of course Aggregate’s stake in Adler was substantially pledged to Vonovia since October and to JPM before. In total therefore the article is very interesting to read, but we cannot make much of it at this time. Neither can the FT.