Fashion giant Primark has withheld its quarterly rent due today and is seeking to revise terms with landlords urgently due to the “unprecedented” circumstances caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Primark shut all of its UK stores at the weekend, ahead of a wider retail lockdown ordered by Boris Johnson, and has contacted landlords today to appeal for their help during what may be a lengthy shutdown.
Primark parent company ABF’s finance director, John Bason, told Retail Week the retailer, which has 110 UK leasehold stores in a 189-strong estate, wants to “sit down with landlords” and address both scheduling and quantum of payments. He said despite the short notice given for the need for new arrangements, Primark is a “long-term investor in the high street and that’s not going to change”.
Bason said: “We are in extraordinary times. I want to underline how quickly things have changed. When would I ever have thought that all Primark’s sales would be lost? It’s the scale – we’ll suffer big losses and we’re saying to landlords, give us some help here.”
He said revised terms have already been agreed with a number of landlords in Europe, where Primark stores had already shut after governments on the continent ordered lockdowns. Bason said he hoped accommodation could be reached in the UK despite the different retail property market structure.
Many landlords are in parlous financial circumstances. Bason said his message to them was: “We’re talking about something that is proportionate. Let’s sit down and talk and work out something that in the circumstances is reasonable.”
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