French in £5bn bid for owner of the Bullring

SHOPPING centre owner Hammerson has rejected a new £5bn takeover bid by the French, sparking fears of a hostile raid.

Hammerson, which owns 22 centres including the Bull Ring in Birmingham, is being stalked by Paris-based Klepierre but refuses to do a deal.

Klepierre chairman JeanMarc Jestin’s offer of 635p per Hammerson share, is a 3pc rise on a previous offer made by Klepierre last month.

But Hammerson’s boss David Tyler said the proposal very significantly undervalues it.

Klepierre now has until the close of Monday to make a formal bid and go hostile under City rules, or else it must walk away. Shares slipped 0.7pc, or 3.6p, to 521.4p after the offer was revealed, suggesting traders expect Klepierre to throw in the towel. If a hostile bid at an attractive price was seen as likely, the stock would have risen much closer to 635p.

Laith Khalaf, of Hargreaves Lansdown, said: ‘ That big a divergence between the current share price and the offer price tells you there’s a very high degree of scepticism that the deal is going to go through.’ City analysts believe an offer of between 650p and 700p is needed to persuade shareholders to support the takeover.

If they can see off the French, Hammerson bosses can pursue their £3.4bn acquisition of fellow British shopping centre landlord Intu Properties, the owner of sites such as Manchester’s Trafford Centre.

This deal is intended to help Hammerson, whose tenants include middle- class staple John Lewis, bulk up and survive competition with online retailers such as Amazon.

Shares in Intu rose 2.8pc, or 5.7p, to 209.9p yesterday, inching it closer to Hammerson’s offer price of 253.9p per share, in a sign that the City now sees the firm’s plans as more likely to happen.