The European operations of US investor Security Capital looks set to be safe from a wide-ranging review of the company’s investments announced with its third quarter results this week.
The company owns one third of Security Capital European Realty, the owner of four UK companies – developers Akeler and City & West End, self storage operator Access and residential investor London & Henley.
Security Capital will sell or reposition companies which can not achieve one of the top two market positions in their niche. “Our intention is to simplify Security Capital’s structure and eliminate the gap between the public market price and private market valuation of our underlying assets,” said chairman William Sanders.
Green Street Advisors analyst Craig Leupold said: “I don’t see it having much of an impact [in Europe]. This is an area where the company is still focusing its growth and it has a lot of capital invested.”
Mark Glatman, chief executive of Akeler, added: “It is our understanding that the repositioning is going to be focused on US operations. They are looking for companies to show more development expertise. We are getting every encouragement to expand on the offices side.”
The review has been prompted by the dramatic fall in its share price over the last year. It now trades at just over $13 compared with $25 last summer. The company has decided that capital invested in lower performing companies could be better used in stock repurchase. It has already spent $53m buying 3.1% of the stock.
