Finance chief Matthew Roberts elevated to CEO at Intu Properties

Shopping centre owner and manager Intu Properties announced the appointment of Matthew Roberts as its new chief executive officer on Thursday, with effect from 29 April.

The FTSE 250 company said Roberts would succeed David Fischel, who would be standing down from the board and leaving Intu on 26 April.

Its board said it had appointed Roberts following a “rigorous” search process, which included a number of first-class internal and external candidates.

Having been Intu’s chief financial officer since May 2010, it said he had “excellent” real estate and retail experience and “detailed knowledge” of the firm’s affairs.

He was therefore considered “well-placed” to drive Intu's winning destinations strategy, which included adapting fast to the changing retail environment, delivering strong underlying individual centre performance and making smart use of capital, including plans to reduce Intu's debt-to-assets ratio to below 50% through disposals, part-disposals and introducing partners to assets.

Roberts was said to possess a “strong” track record at Intu of successfully recycling capital, with more than £1bn of assets having been sold since he joined.

Prior to joining the company, Matthew Roberts was chief financial officer of Gala Coral from 2004 to 2008, leading the acquisition of Coral which resulted in the business becoming the UK's largest private equity-owned company at the time.

Prior to that, he was finance director of Debenhams, managing the company's successful initial public offering in 1998 and sale in 2003, and also held senior roles at Topshop and the Burton Group.

Current chief executive David Fischel had been with Intu since 1985, and chief executive since 2001 - a period which included transformative events such as the demerger of Capital & Counties in 2010, the Intu Trafford Centre transaction in 2011 and the rebranding as Intu in 2013.

He had played a “major role” in the firm becoming the UK's leading owner, developer and manager of large-scale regional shopping centres with £9bn of assets, the board said.

“David's substantial contribution to Intu's affairs over many years has been outstanding and he will be greatly missed by the board and all of Intu's staff,” said Intu Properties chairman John Strachan.

“I would like to extend my personal gratitude to David for continuing to steer the group for a longer period than was originally intended until we had completed our succession process.

“David will leave Intu with our very best wishes.”

Strachan added that Matthew Roberts had been an “exceptional” chief executive officer at Intu.

“This, combined with his extensive and relevant experience, including his proven expertise in leading strategic transformation projects, means he is absolutely the right person to lead this business going forward.”

A formal process to recruit a new chief financial officer would begin imminently, the board said, which would include external and internal candidates.

In the meantime, the position would be filled on a temporary basis from Intu's finance team under the supervision of Roberts.