The concept of just out right buying Vonovia has passed through my mind as well. You can buy the full company for just 15 billion on the stock market.
If I am to read Vonovia's balance sheet correctly (https://report.vonovia.com/2024/q4/en/balance-sheet) then Vonovia in 2024 owned roughly 80 billion of apartments and had debts of roughly 40 billion (62 billion in total liabilities but that includes things like taxes and equity owed to shareholders.)
When you look at their balance sheet vs the stock market capitalization of the company that's when you get hit with the full force realization of how much modern real estate finance is just made up. What's the true value of these flats anyway if you can just acquire them for 15 billion? (Keeping in mind that you also need to take on the 40 billion in debt, but then again, Vonovia only took on that debt to buy those flats from others well after their construction costs had already been paid off.)
We had a few years here in Berlin where apartment rents were rising, but the value of the buildings themselves was decreasing. Part of that occurred in the 2022-2023 period when over indebted large landlords had to put a bunch of buildings on the market because of the rise in interest rates, and so naturally the prices of the buildings dropped with all that supply, and yet the rents on the flats themselves were increasing.
Sorry, I was a financial journalist for 15 years so this was my gig: the discrepancy between the value of the company and the value of its assets is a legal cottage industry in Germany: people sue after takeovers and courts award them a bonus because the offer didn't reflect the book value. It always takes several years but the leftist dude who started Zapf Umzüge actually made himself a fortune filing the suits.
I think you're doing fine. The big realization for me as a financial journalist was to discover that balance sheets and stock are just basic math. They're called "anfechtungsklage". Google around!
The concept of just out right buying Vonovia has passed through my mind as well. You can buy the full company for just 15 billion on the stock market.
If I am to read Vonovia's balance sheet correctly (https://report.vonovia.com/2024/q4/en/balance-sheet) then Vonovia in 2024 owned roughly 80 billion of apartments and had debts of roughly 40 billion (62 billion in total liabilities but that includes things like taxes and equity owed to shareholders.)
When you look at their balance sheet vs the stock market capitalization of the company that's when you get hit with the full force realization of how much modern real estate finance is just made up. What's the true value of these flats anyway if you can just acquire them for 15 billion? (Keeping in mind that you also need to take on the 40 billion in debt, but then again, Vonovia only took on that debt to buy those flats from others well after their construction costs had already been paid off.)
We had a few years here in Berlin where apartment rents were rising, but the value of the buildings themselves was decreasing. Part of that occurred in the 2022-2023 period when over indebted large landlords had to put a bunch of buildings on the market because of the rise in interest rates, and so naturally the prices of the buildings dropped with all that supply, and yet the rents on the flats themselves were increasing.
Sorry, I was a financial journalist for 15 years so this was my gig: the discrepancy between the value of the company and the value of its assets is a legal cottage industry in Germany: people sue after takeovers and courts award them a bonus because the offer didn't reflect the book value. It always takes several years but the leftist dude who started Zapf Umzüge actually made himself a fortune filing the suits.
This is not my specialty I know I could be better at reading these balance sheets.
However I'm fascinated by what you say: where could I learn more about this ?
I think you're doing fine. The big realization for me as a financial journalist was to discover that balance sheets and stock are just basic math. They're called "anfechtungsklage". Google around!