British Land slams shareholder Laxey

12 April 2012

WITHIN hours of a crucial vote, British Land attacked the credibility and methods of dissident shareholder Laxey Partners, revealing that it has borrowed 90% of the shares with which it will vote at today's annual meeting.

British Land yesterday asked Laxey to reveal how it came to triple its stake in the company from 2.9% to 9% over three days last week when normal trading reflected no such movements.

Laxey chairman Colin Kingsnorth admitted he had borrowed 41.7m of the 46.6m shares he had declared an interest in. He told the board there was no set length of time for the trade but 'it is market etiquette to hold the borrowed stock for at least a week'.

British Land chairman John Ritblat is furious but will not be able to stop Laxey voting against him.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in