Boycott Hammerson, Brent Cross Centre, Birmingham Bullring

Hammerson is a property development and investment company. It invests mainly in offices and retail premises.

This means we can boycott Hammerson by staying away from the shopping centres it owns.

Hammerson have interests in several major retail developments, including:

* Brent Cross, London, England
* Cabot Circus, Bristol, England
* Espace Saint-Quentin, Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France
* Highcross, Leicester, England
* Italie 2, Paris, France
* Les 3 Fontaines, Cergy-Pontoise, France
* O'Parinor, Aulnay-sous-Bois, France
* The Bullring, Birmingham, England
* The Oracle, Reading, England
* WestQuay, Southampton, England
* Union Square Shopping Centre, Aberdeen, Scotland

Hammerson own six London office buildings, which provide 105,000 m² of prime accommodation including 125 Old Broad Street and 99 Bishopsgate.

The firm switched to Real Estate Investment Trust status when REITs were introduced in the United Kingdom in January 2007. This means that they can buy a share of a retail premises without buying the premises themselves. This also means that they pay no tax on their income, or on their capital gains, but do pay on their dividend income the properties generate. Hammerson describe this arrangement as 'tax-efficient'. I think we know what that means.

John Nelson, a Chartered Accountant, was appointed Chairman of Hammerson in 2005. He had joined the board the year before. He is also a non-executive deputy chairman, Kingfisher (annual pay, £63,000); non-executive director, BT (annual pay, £50,000). His pay at Hammerson is £200,000 per year. (source http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/article587653.ece )

On 18th October, John Nelson signed an open letter calling on the Chancellor to continue the coalition government's plans to reduce the public finance deficit in one term, plans which included swingeing cuts on the poorest members of society and which risk pushing this country into a double-dip recession, the likes of which has not been seen since the last time the tories took power and tanked the economy in the early 80's.

For this reason John Nelson is considered to be a fully signed up member of the Big Business Society and we urge people to boycott all Hammerson properties including the Brent Cross Centre, The Birmingham Bullring and Cabot Circus, Bristol.