French shopping-centre giant Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) announced on Thursday the appointment of a new chairman of the management Board, and at the same time thanked Jean-Marie Tritant, who has spent the past five years working to turn the group around.

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

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

Before that, he spent more than 15 years at the pan-European real estate private equity firm Aermont Capital, where he served under Léon Bressler, former CEO of Unibail.

This “succession plan” was already in the works, the property company said in a press release, adding that the supervisory board decided on 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, said Jacques Richier, Chairman of URW’s Supervisory Board, in the release.

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

Burdened by debt from the Westfield acquisition in 2019, and then by the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced many shopping centres to close, URW found itself in a particularly difficult position at the end of 2020, with its share price at an all-time low.

In open opposition to the strategy at the time, Léon Bressler, the company’s former CEO from 1992 to 2006, and French businessman Xavier Niel led a shareholder revolt to oust the previous management.

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 end of 2020. The latter will leave the company at the end of the year, following a transition period.

From storm to profitability

Xavier Niel, a member of the French group’s supervisory board, expressed in a press release “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 said, adding that Jean-Marie Tritant created “the conditions for a solid and lasting turnaround.”

The group has now substantially reduced its debt, sold its U.S. assets deemed less promising, and is forecasting profitability growth of around 6% through to 2028.

“Building on the success of the group’s strategic transformation” during his term of office, Tritant said he is “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 through the ranks of the office division to become managing director, shopping centres and offices, France, in 2012. He was then promoted to chief operating officer in 2013, and appointed president of URW in the United States in 2018.

A disciple of Léon Bressler, he told 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 same time as announcing the change of Chairman, URW, which also owns convention centres and is the developer of the Triangle Tower in Paris, reported on Thursday a 2.4% increase in gross rental income from its shopping centres for the first nine months of the year, compared with the same period in 2024.

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

The group also announced the acquisition of a 25% stake in the Saint James Quarter shopping centre in Edinburgh, Scotland, one of the twenty most visited shopping centres in Europe, according to URW.