The city council's review period for the SM market deal will end on January 9. On or before this date, the city council will vote to decide whether to accept or reject SM's proposal. So the city council is just a few days away from making its decision.
The vote is no longer happening after SM's withdrawal of its proposal. This has surprised a lot of people because SM rarely backs down from lucrative projects like this. They almost always win. They often get what they want.
So why did they decide to back down this time? And why did they back down just a few days away from the city council vote?
Was it a calculated move to save face? Did their intel-gathering tell them that the city council will likely vote NO to the proposal?
To save themselves the embarrassment of getting rejected, did they decide to just withdraw the proposal instead of waiting for the city council's decision?
The withdrawal looks like a calculated PR move to lessen the potential negative impact on their corporate image.
You can't blame them though. As far as corporate image is concerned, "𝗦𝗠 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗱𝗿𝗮𝘄𝘀 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗮𝗹" is a better headline for them than "𝗦𝗠 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗮𝗹 𝗥𝗲𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝗖𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗖𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗹".
