Neither companies have yet confirmed the talks but the 102,000-square-meter. Arkadia mall in Warsaw alone is worth €550 million so that the total transaction is worth well over €1 billion in total. Simon in Europe entered a 50/50 joint venture with the Canadia investor Ivanhoe Cambridge to acquired the group BEG which owns seven malls in Europe, of which five in France – two assets at Torcy in southwestern France totalling around 95,000 square meters, at Bagnolet, at Villabé in the south of Paris, and in the town of Wasquehal.

Wansquare said the sale to Unibail-Rodamco, which with a portfolio of over 450 malls is by far the largest retail owner and developer in Europe, is probably motivated by Simon Property's desire to raise liquidity for an eventual takeover of one of its main US competitors General Growth Properties. The latter owns more than 200 malls valued last spring at just under $30 billion.

Separately, in a move that will be seen as a wake-up call to the Dutch government to clarify real estate legislation, the giant shopping center group Unibail-Rodamco is to exit from the Dutch FBI/REIT fiscal regime at the start of 2010, and retain only its French SIIC/REIT status.

The Franco-Dutch group said it expects to lose the benefit from the tax exemption of its Dutch activities provided by the FBI regime from 1 January but anticipates this will have no material impact on its results due to significant Dutch tax-loss carry forwards, resulting from the decline in real estate values since the merger between Unibail and Rodamco Europe, and the implementation of other measures. The Dutch real estate portfolio currently represents 13% of the group's total real estate portfolio. "If the Dutch FBI structure were to evolve in line with most other international REIT regimes, Unibail-Rodamco SE might reconsider re-entry," it said in a statement.