The owner of some of Britain’s biggest shopping centres has called for emergency support from its lenders and the government after its tenants paid less than a third of their rent bill.
Intu Properties, which owns the Trafford Centre in Manchester and Lakeside in Essex, warned that it would breach the terms on its debt commitments after it received only 29 per cent of rents due from tenants this month, compared with 77 per cent a year ago. The landlord was on the brink of collapse before the coronavirus outbreak took hold of the UK economy. It owns some of the country’s most popular shopping centres but amassed £4.5 billion of debts with retailers already struggling to keep up with rents because of online
