AEDES SpA, an Italian real estate and fund-management company, rose yesterday to the highest in almost six weeks in Milan on a report that investors Tom Barrack and Vittorio Casale will make an offer for stakes in two of the beleaguered company's ventures.
Aedes advanced as much as 8.5 cents, or 7.4 percent, to 1.23 euros (US$1.78), its highest level since July 25, and traded at 1.2 euros, up 4.7 percent. That gave the company a market value of 122 million euros.
Tom Barrack's Colony Capital LLC and Italian businessman Vittorio Casale are expected to make a bid to buy stakes in two Aedes SpA ventures by next Monday, financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore said.
The two joint ventures are valued at about 1 billion euros, the newspaper said.
"The sale of the joint ventures would mean a reduction of some 350 to 400 million euros in the group's aggregated debt," analyst Simonetta Chiriotti wrote in a report.
Aedes said on August 13 that it has started negotiations on asset sales and is working on details of a 200-million-euro capital increase. The company's auditor, Ernst & Young LLP, said that it had "doubts" about the company's ability to continue operating.