Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield: Vincent Rouget named new chairman of the board

French shopping-centre big Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) introduced on Thursday the appointment of a new chairman of the administration Board, and at the identical time thanked Jean-Marie Tritant, who has spent the previous 5 years working to show the group round.

Vincent Rouget, at present managing director, European operations, will take the reins of the CAC 40-listed firm on January 1, 2026.

The 45-year-old joined URW in 2023 as managing director for technique and funding, and “actively contributed to the development of the company’s 2025-2028 roadmap.”

Before that, he spent greater than 15 years at the pan-European actual property non-public fairness agency Aermont Capital, the place he served beneath Léon Bressler, former CEO of Unibail.

This “succession plan” was already in the works, the property firm stated in a press launch, including that the supervisory board selected Thursday “to accelerate its implementation”.

“Today’s announcement reflects our proactive approach to succession, the Group’s solid performance and the positive trajectory embarked upon as part of the roadmap” drawn up by Jean-Marie Tritant for 2025 to 2028, stated Jacques Richier, Chairman of URW’s Supervisory Board, in the launch.

He paid tribute to the outgoing chairman of the administration board, appointed “at a critical time” to remodel the Group and relaunch its development “in a particularly difficult external environment.”

Burdened by debt from the Westfield acquisition in 2019, after which by the Covid-19 pandemic, which pressured many procuring centres to shut, URW discovered itself in a very tough place at the finish of 2020, with its share value at an all-time low.

In open opposition to the technique at the time, Léon Bressler, the firm’s former CEO from 1992 to 2006, and French businessman Xavier Niel led a shareholder revolt to oust the earlier administration.

This revolt led to the appointment of Léon Bressler as Chairman of the Supervisory Board and of Jean-Marie Tritant as vhairman of the Management Board at the finish of 2020. The latter will go away the firm at the finish of the yr, following a transition interval.

From storm to profitability

Xavier Niel, a member of the French group’s supervisory board, expressed in a press launch “his gratitude and appreciation to Jean-Marie Tritant for his commitment to URW.”

“While managing the group’s activities in the United States, he agreed, at the end of 2020, to return to France to take over the reins of a Group in the midst of a storm”, he stated, including that Jean-Marie Tritant created “the conditions for a solid and lasting turnaround.”

The group has now considerably lowered its debt, bought its U.S. property deemed much less promising, and is forecasting profitability development of round 6% by way of to 2028.

“Building on the success of the group’s strategic transformation” throughout his time period of workplace, Tritant stated he’s “fully confident in URW’s ability to generate future growth under the leadership of Vincent and the management board.”

Tritant, 58, joined Unibail in 1997 and rose by way of the ranks of the workplace division to turn out to be managing director, procuring centres and workplaces, France, in 2012. He was then promoted to chief working officer in 2013, and appointed president of URW in the United States in 2018.

A disciple of Léon Bressler, he advised AFP in the spring that it was the former CEO who “recruited” him, “appointed him to shopping centres”, then “sent him to the US” and “asked him to take over as Chairman of the Management Board”.

At the identical time as saying the change of Chairman, URW, which additionally owns conference centres and is the developer of the Triangle Tower in Paris, reported on Thursday a 2.4% enhance in gross rental earnings from its procuring centres for the first 9 months of the yr, in contrast with the identical interval in 2024.

Sales by retailers in the group’s centres rose by 3.4% and footfall by 1.8%.

The group additionally introduced the acquisition of a 25% stake in the Saint James Quarter procuring centre in Edinburgh, Scotland, one of the twenty most visited procuring centres in Europe, in line with URW.