Billionaire clips Shaftesbury’s wings over equity concerns
WEST End landlord Shaftesbury has had its ability to raise money curtailed after its largest shareholder, Hong Kong billionaire Samuel Tak Lee, voted against plans which would have allowed management to waive shareholder pre-emption rights in some circumstances.
Mr Tak Lee, who owns just over 25pc of Shaftesbury’s shares, blocked two resolutions at the company’s AGM yesterday. These would have allowed directors to ignore pre-emption rights in some cases, potentially allowing them to raise money more easily. The rights allow shareholders to have first refusal over new shares but can be discounted in some circumstances. But a third resolution which Mr Tak Lee also voted against, which allows the directors of the company to allot shares, did pass.
Mr Tak Lee had raised concerns about the way in which Shaftesbury was raising money after it completed a £260m equity raising in December.
A letter from the businessman to shareholders at the time said: “The combination of a pre-emptive offering at a material discount to the market price and the manner in which shares were then allocated, has caused me great concern.”
But following the AGM, Jonathan Nicholls, Shaftesbury’s chairman, said that the board did not expect to need to “raise further equity for some time”.
Shaftesbury reported yesterday that it had let more than half of the space in its new developments, as shoppers in central London continue to spend.
The firm, which owns almost 15 acres of prime London shopping space, including parts of Chinatown, said 52pc of space in its recently completed larger schemes had been let. Shares shaded 0.3pc to 943p.