Shares in the UK’s biggest REITs took a tumble yesterday after weak interim results from intu sparked a sell-off.

Shopping centre specialist intu reported a 19% fall in NAV and 7.7% like-for-like fall in net rental income in half-year results.

On the back of the results, Intu’s shares nosedived, closing down 32%.

Other retail-focused REITs were also hit. Hammerson shares closed down 10.7% and Capital & Regional shares fell 8.7%.

Meanwhile, companies with significant retail holdings were also affected. Capital & Counties shares fell 5.7% and shares in British Land and Landsec both fell by about 3.5%.

Analysts at Liberum described the intu results as “awful”.

“With no sign retail pressure is easing and full disposals proving hard to achieve there is little we believe management can do to ease pain in the near term making an equity raise more likely,” they said.