Property giant British Land today defied the doommongers by announcing it would resume paying a dividend to investors and said its shop tenants have been seeing improving sales.
Footfall - the number of people visiting stores on its properties - was running 21% ahead of where the group thought it would be, and their sales were running at 90% of where they were a year ago, figures for the second quarter of its financial year showed.
It said: "Open air, out of town retail parks were driving the outperformance, playing a key role for retailers."
Despite their troubles earlier on in the pandemic, June rent collections came in at 98% from offices and 57% from retail, meaning British Land got in 74% of its rents in total. For September, it has already collected 69% of its rents, made up by 91% in offices and 50% in retail.
While the retail collections were still weak, that marked an improvement as shoppers ventured out during the summer months. Non-essential retail was allowed by the government to reopen in June, since when footfall has progressively improved.
A total of 84% of retail tenants have now reopened, British Land said.
