(News Bulletin 247) – The British bank has raised its advice by two notches on the operator of shopping centers Klépierre. On the other hand, it maintained its recommendation to “underweight” Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield.

In a market where increases are above all dominated by luxury players, following the good publication of LVMH, a few groups from other sectors also stand out.

This is the case of the operator of shopping centers Klépierre which wins nearly 2.5% around 3 p.m. The property company is driven by a two-notch increase from Barclays, from “underweight” to “overweight”, the equivalent of “buying” from the British bank, with a price target raised to 24 euros against 22 euros previously.

All listed real estate groups suffered warning shots on the stock market last month, with the sector becoming a collateral victim of the mini-banking crisis. This is because the market has begun to anticipate potential difficulties in bank refinancing, which is very important for property companies when they seek to acquire an asset. This put their valuations under pressure.

Opportunities to seize

Nevertheless, analysts believe that this movement may encourage positioning on quality stocks. “Beyond a few groups really in difficulty, investment opportunities appear in view of the stock market discounts that exist in the sector”, underlined Florent Laroche-Joubert, analyst at Oddo BHF, in a recent article. The specialist cited, among his recommendations, Klépierre. “In shopping centers, Klépierre remains the major European benchmark player with a very good compromise between the quality of its assets and a solid balance sheet,” he added.

Barclays abounds in this direction, this Thursday in its sector note, in which the bank wants to be more “constructive” on shopping centers. “We are aware that consumers are under pressure and that retail sales are expected to decline, which has led us to be cautious on the sector so far,” write its analysts. However, the latter believe that it is now time to adopt another approach, which consists of valuing companies that generate cash and present a solid balance sheet.

With this in mind, Barclays prefers to bet on Klépierre than Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW), on which it has maintained its “underweight” recommendation. It notes in particular that Klépierre’s debt indicators are better than those of URW. The bank also observes that 55% of analysts following Klépierre have a recommendation equivalent to “underweight” – therefore to sell – against 33% on Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield. She concludes that the market risks underestimating Klépierre’s resilience in times of economic depression.

Especially since, according to her, the company has managed to renew a large proportion of tenants in its shopping centers (26%) since the pandemic, while maintaining an “effort rate” (the ratio of rents collected to the figure business of merchants) by 13%, a figure which should increase this year, according to her.