Simon Property drops chase for Capital Shopping Centres
US giant Simon Property Group dropped its £2.9 billion pursuit of Capital Shopping Centres today with another swipe at the firm's "deeply unattractive" plans to buy Manchester's Trafford Centre.
The rebel shareholder, which owns 5.1% of CSC, claims the board is overpaying with its "value destructive" £1.6 billion acquisition of the centre from John Whittaker's Peel Holdings.
Peel gets a 23.2% stake in CSC in return.
SPG had until tomorrow to table a firm bid under a put-up-or-shut-up deadline but complained it was unable to work up a full offer because it had been denied access to the books.
CSC shares fell 13.8p to 378.7p.
The firm attempted to bat away SPG's 425p-a-share indicative offer last week by suggesting it was worth as much as 625p a share, or £4.3 billion, although the bid suitor today branded this "wishful thinking designed to frustrate Simon's offer".
CSC, which owns regional shopping centres including Thurrock's Lakeside, also revised the Trafford deal last week to put a higher 400p price on the new shares being issued to Peel.
SPG added: "If the CSC board really believes in this potential value, why are they proposing to issue 33% of the company's existing shares at a price of 400p?"
Under takeover rules SPG is banned from making another approach for six months, but still plans to vote against the Trafford deal at an extraordinary meeting on January 26 and could sell off its stake.
