The British shopping centre owner facing its second takeover approach this year has sketched out plans for thousands of homes to be built around its malls in an attempt to hedge against falling retail property valuations.
Intu Properties, the FTSE 250 owner of the Trafford Centre in Manchester, said it had identified the potential for 5,000 rented homes and nearly 600 hotel rooms on car parks and other land around its out of town centres.
The company reported a 3% fall in the value of its shopping centre portfolio to £9.6bn in the three months to the end of September in a trading update, adding to a 5.6% drop in the first six months of the year.
According to the Telegraph, wobbles in the retail sector including at House of Fraser and insolvent fashion seller Coast has forced shopping centre developer Intu to further trim its growth forecasts and write down the value of its estate.
The FTSE 250 company cut its rental growth forecast for the year from between 1.5% and 2.5% to between 0% and 1% after writing off balances owed by tenants that have gone into administration.
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