Civitas Social Housing posted one of the highest share price rises in the London-listed real estate market on Friday, ending a week in which a short-seller launched a scathing attack on the business.
Investors in Civitas are still waiting for the company’s full response to an open letter from the team at ShadowFall. The fund claims Civitas has not kept shareholders informed of the details of certain deals and has taken a short position in the company, expecting its share price to fall.
Civitas has described the accusations as based on “factual inaccuracies, incorrect assumptions, erroneous comments and assertions which are not grounded in fact”. It has promised a full response to ShadowFall’s 20-plus-page document.
Civitas’s shares have fallen from an all-time high of 119.4p in July, with several severe drops in August. Today they edged up 2.1% to 92.5p. The stock’s all-time low was 76.7p in the summer of 2019.
The day’s most sizeable real estate fall came from Helical, down by 3.4% at 456.5p.
The FTSE 100 closed at 7,051, down by 0.4%. The FTSE 250 closed at 23,608, down 0.9%.
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