The landlord behind the Manchester’s Trafford Centre and the Essex Lakeside is bracing itself for a ‘challenging’ rest of 2019, it warned today, as the troubles in the retail sector show no sign of abating.
Intu cautioned that a ‘higher-than-expected’ number of store closures in 2019 will likely take a chunk out of its bottom line.
There have been a flurry of CVAs in the last couple of years, through which struggling retailers have been allowed to terminate leases early or negotiate lower rents with landlords.
The growing popularity of this controversial insolvency mechanism is taking its toll on some landlords as the unexpected store closures will leave them out of pocket until a new tenant is found.
