{"id":163859,"date":"2021-01-11T18:46:45","date_gmt":"2021-01-11T18:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theindustry.fashion\/british-land-feels-tier-pinch-as-more-than-half-of-december-retail-rent-missing\/"},"modified":"2021-08-06T12:09:49","modified_gmt":"2021-08-06T12:09:49","slug":"british-land-feels-tier-pinch-as-more-than-half-of-december-retail-rent-missing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theindustry.fashion\/british-land-feels-tier-pinch-as-more-than-half-of-december-retail-rent-missing\/","title":{"rendered":"British Land feels tier pinch as more than half of December retail rent missing"},"content":{"rendered":"
British Land has managed to collect less than half of the rent it is due from the shops and other retail outlets that rent its space<\/strong>, as two-thirds of them were forced to close in January.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The company said it had collected 46% of December rents by Thursday last week,<\/strong> seven days after they were due.<\/p>\n The bills cover the last three months of the year, which were hit by both lockdown and the Government\u2019s tier system, which is designed to slow the spread of COVID-19.<\/p>\n By Christmas Eve, restrictions were not as tight as they had been during November\u2019s lockdown, and 73% of British Land\u2019s stores were operational at that point,<\/strong> it said.<\/p>\n Less than two weeks later, on 7 January, only 620 stores, or 32%, were able to trade<\/strong> in some way.<\/p>\n The company reported \u201cresilient\u201d trading in the four weeks to Christmas and said that between 30 November and 26 December, footfall was 76% of last year\u2019s level.<\/strong><\/p>\n The company also said it had noticed very little difference between sales in areas in Tiers 1 to 3<\/strong>.\u00a0Stores in Tier 4 had however been hit, and were five percentage points lower.\u00a0In shops that remained open, sales were 81% of last year\u2019s levels.<\/p>\n \u201cBritish Land\u2019s managed to collect less than half the rent it\u2019s owed for December. Even allowing for new monthly collection agreements, 45% of the December retail rent roll is unpaid,\u201d said Nicholas Hyett, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s testament to the dire state of the retail sector<\/strong> that the market has shrugged off those pretty ugly numbers and left the shares broadly unmoved.\u201d<\/p>\n Those shares, which fell around 1%, were likely buoyed by British Land\u2019s office space.\u00a0<\/strong>In that segment, it has collected 95% of December rent already, and expects to receive more in time.<\/p>\n Office rent has proven much more resilient for the company during this crisis.\u00a0It has collected 98% of the March rent it was due, 99% of June rent, and 99% of September rent.<\/p>\n Hyett said: \u201cIn British Land\u2019s favour is the fact its shopping centres are performing better than the wider market<\/strong> \u2013 helped by outdoor retail parks delivering click and collect services \u2013 while office rent is proving robust despite the fact many of us are working from home.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are long-term positives and, together with newer campus developments in London, should mean the group emerges from the crisis bruised but not broken<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":155530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10585,6,10494],"tags":[11870,13779,9786],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n