Hammerson, the retail and offices property developer that owns London’s Brent Cross shopping centre and which has a stake in Birmingham’s Bullring, sank to a pre-tax loss in the first six months of the year after almost 10 per cent was wiped off its net asset value.

Hammerson has been hit by a sharp decline in the value of underlying property assets during the past 12 months as the wider property sector has suffered its worst slump since the early 1990s.