Crown Estate pulls plug on £1.7bn Regent Street float

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The firm, which manages the Queen's hereditary land and is one of the biggest landowners in London, shelved the deal after it became worried the plans would be made public before they were finalised.

It would have involved listing the Regent Street Estate through a special purpose vehicle such as a real estate investment trust, giving investors the chance to buy into the fund and share in its success.

Property consultants Cushman & Wakefield and CB Richard Ellis were brought in to advise on the deal but the Crown Estate became concerned that information was leaked to the press and has now pulled out.

According to property magazine Estates Gazette, the Crown Estate's head of Regent Street Strategy and Development, David Shaw, told the advisers that "given the seriousness of the leak" the project has been put on hold.

The Crown Estate today denied any such plans existed. "We have no current plans for an investment vehicle or whatever for Regent Street," a spokeswoman said.

It owns four million square feet of shops and offices on and around Regent Street.

The plan was to put them into a fund and offer between 25% and 30% of the equity to investors to raise between £375 million and £500 million.

The firm, whose total portfolio is worth £7 billion and stretches from estates in Scotland through England and Wales to London, where it owns Regent's Park and much of St James's, is banned by law from borrowing money.