URW’s primary focus is now on protecting the health and safety of its employees, tenants, and visitors, and the Group is carefully monitoring the latest health guidelines issued by the World Health Organization, national, regional, and local governments and adapting its operations accordingly.
At this date, local authorities have required all non-essential stores to close in France, Spain, Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. As such, the Group’s shopping centres in these markets are substantially closed (supermarkets, food stores, and pharmacies are typically allowed to open). Some limitations to trading hours also apply in Denmark. TheGroup’s other shopping centres continue to trade as normal for now, albeit with reduced footfall, although URW expects other governments may adopt similar measures in due course.
The Group’s Convention & Exhibition business is also seeing an impact, with the French government currently restricting any events of more than 100 people. The Group’s offices division is not affected at this point.
At this stage, it is too early to determine the situation’s impact on the contractual obligations of the Group’s retailers and other partners or to estimate the effect of any case-by-case support measures the Group may decide on. The Group has started an active dialogue with its tenants on how to address these unprecedented challenges. In addition, URW is actively reducing non-staff expenses, deferring non-essential capital expenditure and will make use of any relevant facilities or arrangements provided by the various national authorities to assist companies through the crisis.
However, considering the uncertainty around this rapidly evolving situation and how long the above preventative measures will need to remain in place, it is not currently possible to estimate the extent of the impact on the Group’searnings. In weathering these events URW benefits from a geographically diversified exposure and, if required, has access to undrawn credit facilities to manage its liquidity needs.
URW will carefully monitor the state of affairs and provide further updates as the situation warrants.
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