By Thabang Mokopanele

Capital Shopping Centres, an owner of regional malls in the UK, has welcomed an order by the London Stock Exchange takeover panel for Simon Property Group to make a firm offer to buy Capital by January 12 or to withdraw.

Capital Shopping CEO David Fischel told Business Day yesterday that Simon Property, which owns a 5% stake in Capital, had been told "to put up or shut up".

Mr Fischel said Simon Property had not made any firm offer the company could take "seriously", but it would consider an offer at the "right price".

Capital Shopping, with a South African shareholding of between 45% and 50%, and 14,8% owned by Liberty International founder Donald Gordon and his family, said its adjourned extraordinary general meeting last week would be reconvened on January 26 to vote on the £1,6bn acquisition of the Trafford Centre.

The company said the shareholder meeting would end the uncertainty created by Simon Property’s attempts to frustrate the Trafford Centre acquisition.

Mr Fischel said the general meeting would ensure Capital Shopping’s shareholders would have clarity over the nature of any proposal that Simon Property might put forward.

"Shareholders should therefore be in a position to make a fully informed decision at the adjourned extraordinary general meeting," he said.

But Simon Property is not letting up and has renewed its request to Capital for due diligence information that it believed to be "reasonable, customary and limited in scope".

Its request had been denied, Simon Property said, and the Capital board had even refused to enter into any talks about information it would be willing to provide.

Mr Fischel said it was not a practice for public companies in the UK to open their books to anyone. "We have our prospectus with all the important information on the company," he said.

Source: Business Day