Mall Owner Sonae Sees Tough 2012 for Retail in Southern Europe

Sonae Sierra SGPS SA, the Portuguese mall owner that offered lower rents and other incentives to keep its southern European tenants this year, expects 2012 to be even tougher as the sovereign debt crisis roils economies using the euro.

“We need to help tenants and do what we have to do to keep occupancy at the maximum level possible” at the company’s 31 malls in Spain, Portugal and Greece, Chief Executive Officer Fernando Guedes de Oliveira said in an interview. Next year “will be even more challenging than 2011,” he said.