Berlin Senator Ulrich Nussbaum announced the agreement for the stock market listing," the senator was quoted as saying. The GSW owners will make a $40.2 million payment to the Berlin city-state to compensate for deleting the 49% equity cap on an IPO contained in the original 2004 contract to buy the state-owned housing firm.

Cerberus and Whitehall are keen, in part or in full, to exit GSW, estimated to be worth some $804 million. GSW owns around 50,000 apartments and manages another 20,000 for third parties, so that a flotation would make it the second largest German housing company after GAGFAH, controlled by US-based Fortress Investments. The full float was approved because the owners were concerned that an IPO of less than half would adversely impact the flotation price.