Corio Q1 rental income falls as Spanish retail struggles

European mall specialist Corio saw like-for-like gross rental income (GRI) fall by 9.6% in Spain in the first quarter of 2014.

The decline was partly driven by discounts that were, 'provided to temporarily support a select number of key tenants', the Amsterdam-listed firm said.

Across all its properties, like-for-like GRI was down an average of 1.3% in Q1, driven by falls in Spain, Turkey and, to a lesser extent, Germany and the Netherlands.

Footfall and tenant sales improved, however, by 0.9% and 0.7% respectively.

Corio has around €7 bn of assets under management and is close to completing a significant sell-off of properties.

'We have sold 31 assets, which represent the vast majority of our disposal programme. The remainder currently accounts for less than 8% of our total portfolio,' said CEO Gerard Groener.

´The average value of the shopping centres increased to €125 mln and the top 25 represents over 70% of the total portfolio,´ he added.