The company's overseas developments at Excalibur and Lisbon, which are still being built and let, will be valued externally ahead of being put up for sale. Sale proceeds will be returned to shareholders. A formal statement said the company was "committed to maximising the value obtained from each outlet village through selling such assets as they mature".

But at the same time as announcing the disposal strategy Freeport also said it had rejected a takeover approach because it was "opportunistic", "wholly inadequate" and had "fundamentally undervalued" the assets of Freeport.

The team formed to make a bid for Freeport, comprising Iestyn Roberts, Chris Howell and Nigel Wright, has decided not to formally bid after initial approaches were rejected by the company . They had secured finance from a private equity fund but were unable to conduct a due diligence after being denied detailed access to the accounts.

Freeport had originally planned to release cash from its mature UK developments by selling them into a limited partnership. But it stopped marketing the venture when it failed to attract outside investors.

The company was founded in 1994 and operates six factory outlet centres in the UK. The centres have attracted top-brand names such as Versace, Nike and Burberry. But the highly successful retail strategy has not been reflected in the company's recent share price, which has been trading at a substantial discount to the asset value of 534p a share. Despite this the company has shown a steady progress and in March Freeport reported an 11% rise in first-half profits to £6 million ($10 million) on turnover of £9 million ($15 million).