The Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled Toronto-based First Capital must hold a unitholder vote on Sandpiper’s request to replace four of the REIT’s nine trustees ‘as soon as practical after March 1′
, with an Ontario court ordering one of the country’s largest shopping centre owners to speed up a vote on the campaign.
In court documents, Sandpiper alleged the lengthy delay was designed to give First Capital management time to sell properties and attempt to improve the price of the REIT’s units. In the court decision, Justice Jessica Kimmel agreed that allowing time for real estate sales to play out “was not a reasonable factor” in setting the meeting date.
As part of its push for new leadership at First Capital, Sandpiper said on Wednesday it lodged a complaint with the Ontario Securities Commission over the REIT’s decision to set a date for the meeting on Dec. 14, then wait until Dec. 30 to do so. Mr. Manji said the approach showed a disregard for regulations around timely disclosure. “This behaviour is not acceptable and certainly not befitting of a board tasked with acting in the best interests of unitholders,” he said.
First Capital units significantly underperformed real estate peers over the past five years. Last September, CEO Adam Paul announced plans to sell up to $1-billion of real estate over the next two years to fund new developments and pay down debt, while increasing the REIT’s cash distributions. First Capital owns approximately $10-billion of properties, mainly grocery store-anchored malls, in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec.
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