Land Securities sealed its planned conversion to REIT status today after 99.1% of shareholders voted in favour of the change.
At an EGM hosted this morning, shareholders approved changes to its articles of association to enable it convert to a REIT on 2 January.
LandSecs is expected to pay a conversion charge of around £300m to convert to a REIT, equivalent to 2% of the group’s qualifying property assets.
Before payment of the charge, the group told shareholders it would conduct a valuation of its assets as at 31 December 2006. This one-off exercise will include an external valuation of both the qualifying REIT properties and the qualifying properties owned by Land Securities Trillium. The results of the valuation will be announced to shareholders in February 2007.
Francis Salway, group chief executive, said: ‘We are confident that our conversion to REIT status will bring benefits to shareholders in terms of the group’s tax efficiency and are excited to be one of the first companies to take advantage of the new legislation. We look forward to the increased dynamism this change will bring to the sector.’