Hammerson: the named short positions through the 2020 closures and rights issue

What the register showed

Under the UK's old regime every net short position of 0.5% or more was published with the holder's name, and the line here is the sum of those named positions. It stood at 0.50% on 8 Apr 2019 and built through 2019 and 2020 to 26.49% on 24 Sep 2020. Only one other UK company in this archive, Melrose in 2016, ever had a higher sum of named positions.

By 20 Dec 2021 the sum had come back to 6.12%. Because the old register only showed positions of 0.5% or more, the true figure at every point was at least as high as the one charted.

2020: closures and a rights issue

Hammerson owns shopping centres in the UK, Ireland and France. Non-essential shops in the UK closed from 23 March 2020 in the first pandemic lockdown, and rent collection across the sector fell sharply. On 6 August 2020, with its half-year results, the company announced a rights issue to raise about £552 million and the sale of most of its stake in the VIA Outlets business for about £274 million.

The register's peak of 26.49% came on 24 Sep 2020, after the rights issue was announced. One caution in reading the line across that period: a rights issue changes the number of shares the percentages are measured against, so figures before and after it are not on the same base.

Reading a named register

The numbers here are large by UK standards because several holders each disclosed positions well above the 0.5% line at the same time. A named register also shows exits: when a holder's position dropped below 0.5% it left the published list, which is why the line can step down sharply on a single day. This page records what was published and when; it says nothing about whether any position was right.