Hammerson nudged up in trading today after the REIT confirmed that former Landsec chief executive Rob Noel will be its next non-executive chairman.
Noel will join the board before October in a move at which some industry figures have expressed surprise.
Analysts were broadly positive on the hire. The team at Exane BNP Paribas said Noel’s experiences of the retail sector would be beneficial given that “the future of large-scale shopping centre[s] is evolving rapidly”.
The company’s shares traded down for much of the day before rallying and ending the session up 1.13% at 111.95p.
Rival retail landlord intu saw the property sector’s deepest dive, closing down 7% at 6.91p.
The FTSE 100 closed down 0.7% at 6,064. The FTSE 250 was up 0.07% at 17,089.
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