Unibail says it won’t budge on $30bn Westfield bid

Unibail Rodamco’s boss has ruled out increasing the bid for Westfield, saying the offer remains “full and fair”.

Unibail Rodamco CFO Jaap Tonckens (left) and CEO Christophe Cuvillier. (The Australian/Chris Pavlich )

Unibail Rodamco chief executive Christophe Cuvillier has ruled out increasing the bid for Westfield because the offer remains “full and fair” despite recent market movements.

The Paris-based chief executive leading the $30 billion bid for Westfield told The Australian today said his company’s recent share price fall was in line with the majority of global Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITS) caught up in the global market volatility.

Unibail has made an offer for Westfield of 0.01844 of its shares for every one share of the Australian listed company and $US2.67 cash. The deal at the time valued Westfield at $10.01 a share.

The transaction requires two-thirds Unibail shareholder approval first and then needs 75 per cent of Westfield investors support to go ahead. A meeting date has yet to be set but is expected to be held before June.

The prospect of the deal being improved is hampered by a key part of the agreement that Unibail shareholders have to vote if an increase is under consideration.

“We think this is a very good deal for Westfield shareholders because the way this is deal is structured part in cash and part in shares they will benefit from the future value creation which we think is very significant,” Mr Cuvillier told The Australian.

However, he said Unibail would refuse to bow to growing calls from some shareholders to increase the cash component of the bid to compensate for Unibail’s falling stock price.

“We think the deal is priced at a very fair price. This process has taken some time, we think the price is full and fair.”

Despite the recent share price pressure, Mr Cuvillier said there was no appetite to increase either the cash or stock component of the deal.

“I don’t see any reason we need to change it. When you look in absolute terms at the stock price of Unibail Rodamco yes, it has gone down recently,” he said.

“But not more than other major European or American or Australian groups … I think you should not look at this in isolation but relative to what has happened to other players.

“When you look at it relative to other players there’s no reason we should change the offer.”

Mr Cuvillier is in Australia to meet with up to 20 major institutional investors in Sydney and Melbourne over the next three days.

It is expected that Mr Cuvillier will tell investors the company believes that Westfield shares would be tracking much lower without the prospect of a Unibail bid