Hammerson eyes further disposals this year with ‘nothing off the table’

The embattled institutional landlord’s managing director of UK and Ireland Mark Bourgeois said it was not ruling out the possibility of selling stakes in its portfolio of premium outlets and flagship shopping centres across the UK, Ireland and France this year.

“We’ve been pretty open the last 12 months that nothing really is off the table when it comes to potential disposals. We’ve done what we said in terms of the retail parks, but we’re not ruling out flagships in the UK, Ireland or France,” he said.

“Or, indeed, premium outlets. There’s been some discussions around that; sales around our stakes in the premium outlet business as well. We’ve got plenty of options.”

Bourgeois was speaking after Hammerson published its financial results for the year to December 31, 2019. The landlord highlighted that since the beginning of last year, it had sold some £975m worth of property, which in turn bought its debt levels down to £2.4bn.

Last Friday, Hammerson announced it had sold off the majority of its remaining portfolio of retail parks – with seven being purchased by Orion’s European real estate fund for £395m, with two further separate parks in Swansea and Belfast being sold for a combined £55m.

Hammerson’s Bourgeois pointed to the landlord selling 75% of its stake in Parisian flagship centre Italie Deux last year as “a clue” as to how it might make further disposals this year.

“If you look at what we did in France last year. We had 100% ownership in Italie Deux and we raised £423m selling down 75% of that. So, we went from 100% ownership to 25% ownership,” he said.

“We still get the return from that 25% investment, but at the same time we retain our management capabilities and our platform of expertise is not diluted when we do things like that. That’s a clue of where we might go in the future.”

Hammerson’s full-year profits for 2019 fell 10.9% to £214m, while rental income also fell 11.2% to £308.5m.

Chief executive David Atkins said: “With the outlook for the UK retail market remaining uncertain, we believe we should maintain our focus on reducing debt during 2020.”