The UK’s largest owner of shopping centres, Liberty International, is currently examining ways in which it can best rebound from the most rapacious property crash in a number of decades, and in so doing is considering separating its portfolio of properties into two different listed companies.

The company, which lists Convent Garden, one of London’s prestigious tourism hotspots among its assets, is said to be examining splitting its £6.1 billion portfolio into two separate entities: a shopping centre business, and a dedicated London property business. Upon the news becoming a topic of open discussion, the company’s shares rose sharply by 1.6%, reaching a mark of £4.59 per share. According to a statement released by Liberty, the transaction is still subject to several third-party approvals, and these are currently under request. The Liberty board will be able to further assess the merits of the scheme once such outstanding matters have been settled, and they have refused to discussed further how the plan might be carried out or what details may be involved.

Liberty is widely thought to own some of the UK’s most fire-proof property assets-especially during the recession period, although their balance sheet is regarded as somewhat weak by some analysts-especially in the blue-chip property sector, which has been particularly hard-hit  by the new recessionary conditions that have been affecting commercial property in particular as mortgages for commercial properties have become somewhat more difficult to come by. It is, in fact, the only member of the UK Real Estate Investment Trust that has sold any assets in order to raise new capital as well as protecting exsting funds. The plan mooted by Liberty is reminiscent of a three-way de-merger that was proposed by the UK’s largest land securities firm in 2008, although the plan was later disregarded. Critics of such schemes state that companies are unable to capture outperformance due to the fact that resources tend to be divided between assets that require very different management. Supporters of the scheme, however, argue that such multi-asset companies tend to give domestic and overseas investors the very best kind of protection when the real estate market faces any kind of sharp downturn. Investors and shareholders are likely to be encouraged, but will watch carefully to see if their faith is matched economically.