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Shopping centre owner Hammerson will continue with its plans to takeover rival Intu for £3.4bn.
This was announced as the firm revealed that net rental income increased by 6.9% year-on-year from £346.5m to £370.4m.
Hammerson showed its interest in purchasing Intu in December and has announced a new £1.5bn credit facility in order to finance the deal.
Hammerson currently owns various shopping centres across the UK and France, such as the Bullring in Birmingham, Brent Cross in north London, Bicester Village, Westquay in Southampton, Cabot Circus in Bristol and Victoria Gate in Leeds.
The company’s portfolio grew 5.9% from £9.97bn in 2016 to £10.56bn last year, with adjusted profit also increasing 6.8% year-on-year.
Despite this, retail sales recorded at the shopping centres fell by 2.7%.
Hammerson chief executive David Atkins said: “In recent years we have actively rebalanced the weighting of our portfolio towards high footfall destinations in major cities across the UK and Europe and this has underpinned our strong financial success at a time of on-going structural change in retail.”
“In line with our strategy, the transaction will further enhance our portfolio and operating platform, providing further opportunity to expand in higher growth markets,” he said when speaking about Intu.
“We are on track with our acquisition timetable and integration planning.”
