The information posted ahead of next month's annual results is intended to allay fears that rents and capital values are being hit by the current economic downturn. A valuation of Liberty's investment properties as of December 31, 2002, showed a surplus of £177.5 million ($292.2 million), or 54p a share. The UK shopping centres rose £423 million ($696.4 million) to £3.64 billion ($5.9 billion).

Liberty decided to release the valuation figures because the increase is so much bigger than management had expected. Gordon said: "It was a very difficult decision." But the company was concerned that it might be criticised for hiding market-sensitive information and so decided to release the figures ahead of the results.

Retail property has been the best performing sector of the UK real estate market over the past year, with prime shopping centres among the best sub-sectors. IPD estimates retail returns in 2002 of more than 13% compared to 10.5%. This helped boost the open market value on the company's total shopping centre portfolio by 5.2% to £3.64 billion ($5.9 billion). Liberty attributed the increased valuation to falling yields and rising rental values.

But there have been growing concerns in the last few weeks about a possible "double dip" recession. The Liberty announcement came within days of the publication of a briefing note by Schroder Salomon Smith Barney, which repeated the analysts' "sell" advice on Canary Wharf Group and British Land. The note argues that the rental market is turning sour and landlords have lost the price war with tenants in the London office market.

The perception of a worsening market was reinforced by research by RICS which concluded that demand for commercial property continued to fall during the final quarter of 2002 amid the gloomy economic outlook.