The retail landlord had been in financial restructuring talks with lenders all of last week, however, after failing to secure a deal, trading in Intu’s shares was suspended on the London Stock Exchange on Friday.

The move has put  2,373 jobs in question across the firm’s 17 UK shopping centres and its London head office. Intu Properties plc owns and operates shopping centres such as intu Trafford Centre, intu Lakeside, intu Merry Hill and intu MetroCentre, in addition to a shopping centre and development site in Spain.

Each of the shopping centres is owned individually by special purpose vehicles (“Propcos”) which are outside of any insolvency process and continue to trade as normal under the control of their directors.

The trio has also been appointed as joint administrators of eight Topco subsidiaries.

An agreement has been reached with key stakeholders which will allow continued provision of central services to the Propcos. Consequently, all of the shopping centres will remain open and operational while the joint administrators assess options for the business and assets of the group.

Jim Tucker, partner at KPMG and joint administrator, said: “intu owns many of the UK’s biggest and best-known shopping centres. The challenges affecting UK retail are well known and have been exacerbated by the impact of COVID-19 and the resulting lockdown. As today’s administration makes clear, those challenges have fed through to owners of retail property, even to owners of high-quality shopping centres such as intu’s.”

David Pike, partner at KPMG and joint administrator, added: “With all centres remaining open, we look forward to working with staff, suppliers and other key stakeholders to preserve value and jobs in these important retail destinations.”