Stock market battles are often violent, sometimes cruel. The listed real estate sector is opening a fratricidal chapter with a shareholder revolt initiated by Léon Bressler and Xavier Niel against the Reset plan launched by the management board ofUnibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) and especially the proposed capital increase.
The frontal attack carried out by a consortium weighing only 4% of the capital of the real estate company could be a source of laughter if it were not carried out by a team combining the former historic boss of Unibail and the troubler of French capitalism. The first brought Unibail to the baptismal font and draws its legitimacy from an almost flawless career in the real estate industry. The second, a media accelerator of the revolt, an entrepreneur who knows everything, a countercyclical investor, is also and above all a symbol of Tech. By focusing on one of the leading shopping center operators, he reassures the most skeptical about the sustainability of the model. “You can either say that everything is going to collapse, or you can think that the economy will rebound. And the day when the economy starts up again, we will still need shopping centers”, he claims in Les Échos.
This belief that the mall is not dead is the basis for Léon Bressler's counterattack. Do the round back. With the Refocus plan, it's not about taking the losses, but about refocusing on your playground, the mall. Second, it's a question of size. Christophe Cuvillier, the current CEO, imagines himself as a world leader. Léon Bressler refocuses it on continental Europe. He sees URW as a “dominant player” in Europe, but a “marginal” player in the United States. One could object to him that any commercial real estate colossus remains a dwarf in the retail galaxy.
The offensive is violent for the management in place, accused of having gone crazy with the acquisition of Westfield. A “bad operation”, “at the wrong time”, “at the wrong price”. The indictment is severe for an operation that has never completely convinced the financial markets. But it is just right in view of the abysmal fall in URW's market capitalization, from €29 billion (pro forma) at the time of the acquisition of Westfield to... €4.4 billion on September 30.
The slingshot may seem all the more cruel because it is endorsed by Guillaume Poitrinal, the former CEO of Unibail, the spiritual son of Léon Bressler, but also the one who chose his successor... a certain Christophe Cuvillier.
But the business world has no qualms. Even in the next world.