Persistent rumours that British Land's John Ritblat was preparing a repeat of the successful securitisation of the City's Broadgate estate have reached a crescendo since the weekend.Prime candidate for refinancing is the Meadowhall shopping centre outside Sheffield in South Yorkshire. BL bought the mall two years ago for £1.3 billion ($1.89 billion).

While shareholders will welcome any moves to reduce the company's cost of borrowing, an asset-backed securitisation will only go part of the way towards rebuilding City confidence in the group. A hard-hitting broker's note from Merrill Lynch last week highlighted the company's "autocratic" management style and the lack of an obvious successor to chairman and CEO John Ritblat, other than one of his own sons.

British Land's shares have repeatedly underperformed the quoted real estate sector, and have traded at a discount to net asset value ranging between 50% and 30%, even though the portfolio includes such trophy assets as the 3.75 million sq ft Broadgate and the Meadowhall.