Business highlights
? All our centres in Sweden have remained open over the past months with trading holding up well in the circumstances
? In Belgium, France and Italy, all stores except food stores and pharmacies have been closed since mid-March and are now preparing for gradual reopening in mid-May
? Eurocommercial has been working with tenants on rent deferrals and holidays in the lockdown period for the smallest operators
? All members of the Management Board have reduced their base salaries by 20% from the May payment for a period of three months and their variable remuneration has been cancelled
? Supervisory Board to nominate Evert Jan van Garderen, currently CFO, to be appointed Chief Executive Officer on the retirement of Jeremy Lewis at the shareholders’ meeting in November 2020
? Eurocommercial proposes changing the end of its financial year to 31 December and will convene an Extraordinary General Meeting on 18 June 2020 to approve the change

Performance highlights
? Like-for-like rental growth was 1.7% for the 12 months to 31 March driven by strong performance in Sweden (2.6%)
? Vacancies as per 31 March 2020 were 1.3%
? Uplift on relettings and renewals was 8.0% for the 12 months to 31 March, based on 226 lease negotiations
? Earnings (direct investment result) of €87.6 million for the three quarters
Eurocommercial’s

CEO, Jeremy Lewis, said:
“The first two months of our third quarter were strong but of course the COVID-19 pandemic seriously affected turnover and footfall in the second half of March. Nonetheless the quarter results overall were solid.
The bright spot in our portfolio is Sweden (22% by asset value) where all our centres have remained open with footfall only about 25% down.
Belgium, France and Italy have all had total lockdowns and the respective governments have all introduced differing schemes for the assistance of retailers which are described under the country sections of this report.
It seems that the end to the lockdowns in Belgium, France and Italy will be introduced during May but national schemes differ, again described later in this report.

It is extremely gratifying that our teleworking systems have worked very well notwithstanding these difficult times and group morale remains high with planning advanced for the post lockdown period.
The level of sales turnover in our centres and therefore rents for the rest of the year is very difficult to predict but our current estimates suggest little likelihood of financial distress for the Group given the quality of our centres and our famously low occupancy cost ratios.
The level of economic uncertainty though has led us, in close consultation with our auditors and other advisers, to recommend to shareholders that our financial year be changed from its traditional 30 June end to 31 December in line with our peers.
Our leasing and management teams have never worked harder and we are impressed with the level of goodwill and cooperation that exists between us and our retail tenants whose lives have been extraordinarily
difficult.
It is far too early to assess accurately the amount of rents to be received for our fourth quarter, given that we have offered tenants rent monthly payments in arrears instead of quarterly in advance and government aid schemes are not yet finalised.
There is now though hope of light at the end of a very dark and frightening tunnel and we look forward to the future with increasing confidence.”

Direct Investment Result
The direct investment result (earnings) for the nine-month period to 31 March 2020 was €87.6 million compared with €89.6 million for the nine months to 31 March 2019. The direct investment result per depositary receipt at 31 March 2020 was €1.78 compared with €1.81 at 31 March 2019.
The decline can be explained by a €2.7 million reduction in rental income for March related to the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, the loss of earnings from the disposal of 50% of Passage du Havre last September was partly offset by organic growth, income from new openings and expenses savings.

Rental Growth and uplifts on relettings and renewals
Like-for-like (same floor area) rental growth (including indexation, turnover rent and reletting and renewals) for the twelve months to March 2020 was 1.7% across our portfolio. Growth was driven by indexation (1.2%) and by a solid uplift of 8.0% on the 226 leases we relet or renewed.
In Belgium, like-for-like rental growth was 1.3%, broadly in-line with indexation. Rental uplift on relettings and renewals was negatively impacted by the current remerchandising and tenant reorganisation ahead of the planned extension of the centre.
In France, like-for-like rental growth was 1.9% broadly in-line with indexation too and marginally ahead of levels seen over the past two quarters.
In Italy, like-for-like rental growth was 1.2%. Indexation only contributed to 0.6% growth and the majority of the growth stemmed from solid uplifts from relettings and renewals which were partly offset by an increase in vacancies.
Like-for-like rental growth in Swedish centres continued to be strong at 2.6%, 120bps ahead of indexation boosted by solid uplifts on renewals and relettings as well as improvements in occupancy of the centres.

see & read more on
https://ml-eu.globenewswire.com/Resource/Download/58af7b9a-189f-400c-9eb3-fa69cfcf3e16