LONDON â€" A German property company owned by the Goldman Sachs investment fund Whitehall announced on Monday that it was planning an initial public offering, one of the first new listings in Europe this year.
The I.P.O. of LEG Immobilien, which specializes in residential property, is expected to raise up to 1 billion euros, or $1.3 billion, with shares in the company to start trading in early February, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The announcement follows a rebound in many European stock markets after a last-minute agreement on the U.S. budget was brokered at the end of last year.
There also were several multibillion-dollar offerings late last year, including from the Russian telecommunications company MegaFon and the British insurer Direct Line, that have raised hopes that Europe's capital markets are slowly opening for new I.P.O.'s in 2013.
Another German real estate company, Deutsche Annington Immobilien, which is controlled by the private equity firm Terra Firma Capital Partners, also is reported to be planning a public offering this year.
Under the terms of the announcement on Monday, LEG said it would list on the Frankfurt stock exchange. The value of its real estate portfolio, including debt, was around 4.7 billion euros last year.
Whitehall and a fellow investor, Perry Capital, are expected to retain a stake in the company after the I.P.O., according one person with direct knowledge of the matter. Goldman Sachs and Perry Capital bought LEG, which owns more than 90,000 properties in German, for around 3.4 billion euros from the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia in 2008.
Goldman Sachs has been an active investor in European real estate over the last several years. In 2011, the firm and the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management raised around 470 million euros through the I.P.O. of the German property company GSW Immobilien.
Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank are joint global coordinators and bookrunners on the offering, while Berenberg Bank, Commerzbank, Erste Bank and Kempen are co-lead managers.
