LONDON: Dutch retail property group Corio NV is putting 350 million euros ($473 million) of properties up for sale in a bid to strengthen and add more flexibility to its balance sheet, its chief executive said.
Corio, rival to Unibail-Rodamco and Klepierre and a top-ten European property group, will market the properties in first-quarter 2012, said Gerard Groener, adding he aimed to complete the sale by the second quarter.
"We said, given that markets will probably not improve over the next three years, why not put them all forward and create flexibility on your balance sheet, so we've increased our sales plan by another 350 million euros," he said on the sidelines of the MAPIC conference in Cannes on Friday.
Groener said the lot consisted of office, industrial and retail properties in France and the Netherlands, as well as smaller assets that could be attractive to private investors.
This would bring the total amount of assets that Corio has earmarked for sale to about 710 million euros. In November, Corio said it expected to complete a 360 million euros sale of properties by first-half of 2012.
Corio's property portfolio comprising shopping centres in the Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Turkey was valued at 7.4 billion euros at end-September, with leverage of 41.4 percent.
If market conditions remained stable, Groener said a successful sale of the 350 million euros worth of properties would bring leverage down to 38-39 percent.
Groener said Corio had already attained total credit lines of 780 million euros, and was looking to secure another 150 million euros with a group of banks, allowing it to fund any upcoming commitments for at least the next two years.
On the company's expansion plans and its upcoming development pipeline, he said Corio had no plans to undertake new projects or make big acquisitions.
Corio, however, could increase its exposure to Turkey, its best performing market, in "due course".
"We're very careful to expand in any country at the moment. With such uncertainty in the market as a whole, I think it's better to take a breath and make sure you create a flexible balance sheet," he said.
Corio was also partnering Boxpark to open pop-up malls around continental Europe, it said in a statement last week. Groener said Corio had identified up to five potential locations and was looking to build one in Amsterdam next year.
Pop-up malls are temporary shopping centres that house retailers on extremely short leases. The partnership's first would be in Shoreditch, London, next month.
In November, Corio reported an operating profit rental income minus costs of 2.15 euros a share for the first nine months of this year.
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