BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - Financial services provider Hypoport wants to return to growth with fresh money from shareholders after the slump in construction financing. The company raised around 50 million euros gross by issuing new shares, as it announced in Berlin on Friday. Hypoport says it will use the additional equity to take advantage of the "extraordinary growth opportunities" in the current market upheaval in real estate finance. However, Hypoport's shares took a sharp downward turn on Friday morning following the news.

Shortly after the start of trading, the stock lost almost seven percent to 136.40 euros, making it the biggest loser in the SDax small cap index. The analyst firm Pareto Securities was surprised by the capital increase. However, it seems sensible to use the recent price increase to be prepared for future opportunities in a difficult market environment, they wrote in a study.

Hypoport had placed the new shares with "qualified investors" at a unit price of 132 euros, according to its own information. This represents a discount of four percent on the weighted average price of the past three days and even almost ten percent on the closing price on Thursday. The shares closed at €146.20, giving Hypoport a market capitalization of just under €950 million.

The new shares are expected to be traded for the first time on or around January 27. In the capital increase, Hypoport had excluded subscription rights for existing shareholders.

The company has had a turbulent few months. Whereas the brokerage of real estate loans had boomed during the period of low interest rates, business slumped in the second half of 2022 as a result of the turnaround in interest rates and lower demand for real estate. Hypoport cited very weak demand in private and institutional real estate financing after the summer months as the reason when it published initial figures in mid-January. This downward trend had continued until October. Since then, the operating performance had stabilized at a historically low level.

Despite a positive first half of the year, the transaction volume on Hypoport's Europace lending platform fell by a total of seven percent last year to 95 billion euros. In real estate financing, by far the largest area, the transaction volume shrank by nine percent to 77 billion euros.

For the current year, company CEO Ronald Slabke was cautiously optimistic after the latest business figures. After a stable fourth quarter, it is still too early to conclude that there will be a short-term recovery. However, the company continues to expect the real estate financing market to return to normalized levels four to eight quarters after the start of buyer reticence in the summer of 2022, he said.

Looking ahead to 2023, the manager spoke of a "year of great opportunities for further market share gains" for Hypoport. However, the Management Board is already turning the cost screw: it wants to reduce the company's costs by 35 to 40 million euros in the current year./stw/knd/stk