The shares will be offered in a range of €15 to €18.50. The current owners will offer some 15.3m shares - potentially raising €283 million--and another 9.3 million will be in the form of a capital increase. The owners may sell up 3.7 million in an additional allocation--meaning the total IPO cash raise could eventually reach €524 million. The price gives a company valuation of €670m to €790m, which compares to its reported net asset value of €950 million. The discount corresponds to the current average in listed real estate firms. Final deadline for subscriptions is May 6.

GSW owns 49,700 apartments and 3.1 million square meters of floor space in Berlin, valued at some €2.6 billion, and manages another 17,000 units for third parties. Founded in 1924, it was originally a communal housing company and was acquired in 2004 from the Berlin city by the private equity group Cerberus and the Whitehall Funds real estate subsidiary of Goldman Sachs, each owning 50%. Berlin at the time put a limit on any flotation of 49% of equity and stipulated the group could not be floated before 2014. Both the Senate and Lower House of Berlin state have voted to lift these requirements over the last month.

Industry sources told the Handelsblatt newspaper that the IPO is structured to allow the two owners to sell up to 60% of their equity stakes in the IPO, while another €140m will flow back into the company--above the minimum €100m required by the city.