British giant Intu, owner of shopping centers, swept away by pandemic

The Intu group owns the giant Trafford shopping center in the Manchester region here on June 23, 2020. REUTERS / Jason Cairnduff

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The British giant Intu, owner of many large shopping centers in the country, has just filed for bankruptcy this Friday. The group, already in difficulty, saw its financial problems aggravated by the Covid-19 crisis and becomes a new victim of the epidemic.

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From our correspondent in London, Muriel Delcroix

The Intu group owns the giant Trafford shopping centers in the Manchester region and the Lakeside shopping center in the south-east, among the busiest in the country. In total, he owns 20 structures, including 17 in the United Kingdom and 3 in Spain. The group employs 2,500 people but in fact makes more than 100,000 living if we take into account the employees working in the stores of these shopping centers and 30,000 more in the supply chain.

Intu is now short of money because many businesses have been unable to pay their rents since the epidemic forced shopping centers to close for many weeks, unlike essential stores. But Intu's financial problems are not new and the group had contracted a huge debt well before the health crisis, which now reaches nearly 5 billion euros.

The impact of the coronavirus has accelerated its fall but the group is paying the price for the surge in online sales and also bad strategic decisions, according to some experts. Unable to reach an agreement with its creditors on a debt arrangement, Intu therefore finds itself in bankruptcy and its sudden fall will not fail to alarm the government and many other sectors of activity, such as aviation and tourism, also hit hard by the pandemic with waves of job losses.

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  • Coronavirus
  • United Kingdom
  • Employment and Work

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