LONDON: Listed intu Properties is forging ahead with its shopping centre development programme in the UK and Spain.
However, chief executive David Fischel believes the company still had the ability to take advantage of acquisition and other opportunities that arose. intu Properties, which owns nine of the top 20 super regional centres in the UK, has a development programme plan that extends to 2020.
It includes a UK investment pipeline of £1.5 billion (R29.65bn) over the next 10 years to add 241 548m² of new retail and leisure space.
Major projects due to commence soon include the extension and refurbishment at intu Watford and the leisure expansion at intu Lakeside. intu Properties also has a growing presence in the Spanish market, where it has a £463 million development pipeline.
It owns two of Spain’s top 10 centres, intu Asturias in Oviedo and Puerto Venecia in Zaragoza, has a development site near Malaga and development options on a further three sites in Valencia, Palma and Vigo.
Fischel stressed last week the primary focus of the company now was on the development programme, but it had always found a way in the past in doing deals that were worthwhile. The company had £500 million in headroom at the moment and had the ability once it had done a development to refinance it and use the proceeds.
Fischel referred to their intu Uxbridge, where last year it brought in an investor that took an 80 percent stake in the centre.
“We can do another deal like that to create more capital. But the general approach is that we take on organic growth in developments and extension and work on a self-help basis and finance them ourselves. That is what our shareholders expect,” he said.
Fischel said the majority of the remaining top 10 shopping centres in Spain were in Madrid and Barcelona, which were very congested markets that it would not focus on for now. “Our strategy for now in Spain is development led. If we build (the opportunities that) we have created, we will have a very valuable business,” he said.
