Retail Estates SA2003年年度报告.pdf

1、Dear shareholder,On 31 March 2003,Retail Estates nv cele-brates the fifth anniversary of its first listing onthe Stock Exchange.Therefore there is a greattemptation to take a look at the growth of thecompany over recent years.It has conscious-ly remained a niche player that initially hadthe size of

2、the average real estate certificate.On this fifth anniversary,we can celebrate thefact that the company has attained a scalelarge enough to enable it to develop inde-pendently from its former promoters.Thiswould not have been possible without thegrowth of our portfolio of 68 properties free ofsupple

3、mentary charges(),which had a valueof 39.02 million eur in 1988,increasing to 151properties free of supplementary chargesvalued at 117.23 million eur in 2003.Growth isperhaps itself not a target,but it has made itpossible to lay the basis for the valuation ofour share.The financial year 2002/2003 wa

4、s withoutdoubt a good year.The level of occupationwas 98.4%.Declining consumer confidencewill undoubtedly take its toll on the retailtrade,but we are convinced that the profileof our tenants,who trade mainly in the middleand lower price classes,are relatively resistantto this.This is contributed to

5、by the fact thatour tenants operate nationally and are lesssensitive to local market factors.It is significantthat the two bankruptcies that we have seenthis year among our tenants concerned smallto medium size enterprises(SMEs).The qualityof the locations meant that these shop premises were immedia

6、tely relet.Retail Estates nv will continue to invest in itsgrowth in 2003/2004,both by purchasingproperties and by the development of shoppremises for its own account.At a debt levelof 40.34%(incl.dividend),with a maximum of50%,there is sufficient room for this.We arealso open to external growth,for