Unibail-Rodamco's Poitrinal hands over reins to COO

Chief operating officer Christophe Cuvillier will take over from Guillaume Poitrinal as CEO of Unibail-Rodamco on 25 April 2013.

Poitrinal has been CEO at Europe's largest listed property company for the past eight years and his mandate expires on this date. Altogether he has been with Unibail-Rodamco for 18 years.

Unibail-Rodamco announced the impending appointment of Cuvillier as CEO and chairman of the management board on Wednesday evening as the company reported its results for 2012.

'The time is right to hand over the reins,' Poitrinal said. 'I recruited Christophe Cuvillier two years ago with the idea that some day he would succeed me. His outstanding performance as COO gave me the time to pave the way for his appointment. The Group posted very good results, and it is financially sound with solid growth potential; it seems like the right moment to bring this succession process to a close.'

Poitrinal said he was leaving the company with a sense of a 'job well done'.

He was appointed CEO of French group Unibail in April 2005 and led the 2007 merger with Rodamco of the Netherlands, creating Europe's largest listed real estate company.

Unibail-Rodamco reported recurring earnings per share of €9.6, representing growth of +6.7% compared to 2011. For the longer term, the group expects to reach recurring EPS of €14 by 2017.

Footfall in Unibail-Rodamco's shopping centres was up +1.3% in 2012. Like-for-like net rental income (NRI) grew +4.2% in 2012, an outperformance of 200 basis points over indexation.

The gross market value of the company's portfolio of shopping centres, offices and convention centres stood at €29.3 bn at end-December, up +4.8% like-for-like compared 2011. The shopping centre portfolio grew +6.0% like-for-like to €23 bn.