Mall giant and owner of Roseville Galleria seeks to sell properties, exit US market

The principal owner of the Sacramento’s largest mall, Roseville Galleria, is eyeing a potential exit from its properties in the United States as it attempts to combat a brutal coronavirus-linked erosion of its retail operations.

Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, a France-based owner of malls worldwide, disclosed the latest potential jolt to the Northern California retail market in a conference call to discuss the company’s most recent financial results.

“We are implementing a program to significantly reduce our U.S. footprint once the investment markets reopen, which should happen as soon as the economy rebounds,” Jean-Marie Tritant, chief executive officer of Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, said during the call.

Despite the grim landscape for brick-and-mortar stores, the company noted that big-time retailers continue to open at its malls., Tritant used expansions at Westfield’s Valley Fair mall in San Jose as an example.

“In March before COVID, we completed the first phase of the Valley Fair expansion in San Jose with the opening of Bloomingdales,” Tritant said during the call. “This was followed by, among others, the Gucci store in September, and the Apple flagship store in October.”

The shopping mall giant also intends to slash its debt and made it clear that once that process is complete, it will undertake a more targeted geographic approach.

“We will be focused on Europe,” Tritant said.

The company’s sales of retail complexes in the U.S. is already underway and will continue into 2022.

“We will initiate the program to dispose of U.S. assets starting in 2020,” Tritant said. “By the way, we did it already with some small assets.”

Every approach appears to be on the table to chop the company’s ownership of malls in the United States, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield executives said.

During the conference call, company executives made it clear that the sale of malls in the United States is a crucial component in the quest to deleverage — sharply reduce debts through property dispositions.

“We will fully deleverage the company through U.S. asset disposals,” Tritant said. “We will deleverage the company through proceeds coming from the U.S.”

Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield executives made it clear that the brutal retail environment that was unleashed by the coronavirus has yet to improve markedly.

“2020 has seen the toughest operating environment in living memory and the impact continues into 2021,” said Fabrice Mouchel, the company’s chief financial officer.

Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield made it clear that there is a good chance it won’t own any U.S. malls by the time one to three years have passed.

“At the end of the day, exposure to the U.S. will be minimal if not zero,” Tritant said.