Live data from Hacker News

Busted retailers use bankruptcy to break leases by the thousands

bnnbloomberg.ca

191–200 of 278 posts

Re: Busted retailers use bankruptcy to break leases by the thousands

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some leases are conditioned the presence of an anchor tenant. So a department store failing can trigger these clauses allowing rent reductions or early termination for smaller retailers.

Not sure Apple would be hoping for a rent reduction if they are already paying a tiny amount of rent. If all US malls (mostly) shut down in the next (say) 8 months and never open again it seems Apple will have hundreds of stores to relocate.

Here is Apple asking for 50% rent reduction in the UK:

https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-reportedly-trying-to-n...

Re: Busted retailers use bankruptcy to break leases by the thousands

#192
post #131

Man, with (currently) four comments mentioning that this is "what bankruptcy is for", I think the point of the article might have been missed. This isn't some sneaky "one weird trick", and that's not the reason Bloomberg is reporting on it. In fact, the tone of the article to me is, "yup, companies do it all the time, but..." And the "but" is: But the moves threaten to upend huge swaths of the real estate market and…

>But the moves threaten to upend huge swaths of the real estate market and the half-trillion dollar market for commercial mortgage-backed securities. And? Seriously. We either have to choose to be a market that is somewhat free or not. At this point, the government is choosing winners and losers. It is a repeat of 2008. Oh no, it is too big to fail. Someone will come by with the investment to buy what is left. Perhap…

When corporations start buckling during sharp economic downturns, everyone's first instinct is always "let them burn."

But it's often not a choice between letting entire swaths of our economy collapse, and dumping absurd amounts of our tax dollars to prop up these poorly-run companies. We can give them loans with strings attached, force them to go through bankruptcy, wipe out the shareholders but preserve the structure of the company, bail them out but subject the industry to much greater regulatory scrutiny, etc.

Personally, I wish we had a straightforward way to bail out a company and have the U.S. government take ownership in the company until the stake can be safely unwound, or the too-big-to-fail company can be broken up. Theoretically, with a controlling stake and the corresponding board seats, you could force out the lousy management that didn't take adequate precautions as well.

It'd kind of be socialism-esque nationalization of industries with extra steps, but Japan has been doing a similar-style thing since the 90s, and I can't imagine it would be any worse than the relatively strings-free bailouts we've seen, or the collateral damage and runaway collapse that would occur from letting a monstrous chunk of the economy fail all at once.

Re: Busted retailers use bankruptcy to break leases by the thousands

#193
post #77

Man, with (currently) four comments mentioning that this is "what bankruptcy is for", I think the point of the article might have been missed. This isn't some sneaky "one weird trick", and that's not the reason Bloomberg is reporting on it. In fact, the tone of the article to me is, "yup, companies do it all the time, but..." And the "but" is: But the moves threaten to upend huge swaths of the real estate market and…

Lots of things were already ghost towns. Even before covid, I am always seeing people with no buildings, and buildings with no people. I'm in SF now, but I have seen this in cities and small towns, red states and blue states: empty malls, hobo jungles down the block from me, friends with minimum wage jobs sleeping in cars, squatters getting the bum’s rush. I imagine there are good reasons to have less than %100 perce…

yes... i guess...

think of houses as bars of gold or bitcoins

Re: Busted retailers use bankruptcy to break leases by the thousands

#194
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no, not the poor poor commercial real estate developers! Anyway all the malls died like decades ago. Have you been to a mall lately? As far as I can tell the only people who go are folks engaged in drug transactions and busloads of tourists from SE Asia.

Malls are also a place to walk, shop, and play for families during winter. In colder areas it's often dark sooner so outdoor activities are more limited.

Here in Australia, the big shopping centres (aka Malls), get their biggest crowds in summer. Xmas helps but also there is often a contiguous 3-7 day stretch of >40C(>104F) maximums with sweltering overnights in the cities.

Not everyone has aircon.

Not looking forward to that if COVID is still kicking our arse.

Re: Busted retailers use bankruptcy to break leases by the thousands

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Malls being ghost towns is a side story. After the 2008 residential MBS crash, as I understand it, a lot of that money moved to the then relatively stable commercial MBS market. If that market goes toes up in turn, with this... (That hasn't been in the news for a few months, so I had to look around for some perspectives. Cf. https://daily.jstor.org/the-commercial-real-estate-markets-i... and, perhaps more controversi…

It's a bit worse than that. The same practices that caused the 2008 crash came back in the guise of "non-prime mortgages". They are functionally identical to sub-prime mortgages. The new laws did nothing to prevent this. They weren't meant to. We had a law designed to stop it that was enacted following the Great Depression. It was called the Glass-Steagall Act, passed in 1933. It was repealed in 1999 during President…

Oh, hey, I hadn't looked in detail at how residential paper works these days, but I think you may be on the mark here. I can't speak to the deep-state stuff, but in terms of mortgages, "qualified" and "non-qualified" appear to mean substantially what you say they mean.

I'm sure that can't possibly go wrong. Especially since the entire SERP when I looked up the "non-prime" term you used was pages put up by fly-by-nights to reassure the suckers that there's nothing wrong with the paper and if anyone tries to tell you otherwise, you should probably punch them in the face.

Re: Busted retailers use bankruptcy to break leases by the thousands

#196
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gathered the issue is when the rich lose everything that snowballs into failing business and low to middle class unemployment surge.

No, other people will take their place, this is how capitalism works. Let the rich lose everything.

Sure, other people will pick up the pieces but that doesn’t mean much to the blue collar worker who is out of a job for 2 years while someone “takes their place”.

Re: Busted retailers use bankruptcy to break leases by the thousands

#197
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If capitalism is to be the law of the land, why not let the rich lose everything? I guess they can easily live on the streets.

I gathered the issue is when the rich lose everything that snowballs into failing business and low to middle class unemployment surge.

So... we'll let the bailouts trickle down?

Re: Busted retailers use bankruptcy to break leases by the thousands

#198
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But the moves threaten to upend huge swaths of the real estate market and the half-trillion dollar market for commercial mortgage-backed securities. And? Seriously. We either have to choose to be a market that is somewhat free or not. At this point, the government is choosing winners and losers. It is a repeat of 2008. Oh no, it is too big to fail. Someone will come by with the investment to buy what is left. Perhap…

When corporations start buckling during sharp economic downturns, everyone's first instinct is always "let them burn." But it's often not a choice between letting entire swaths of our economy collapse, and dumping absurd amounts of our tax dollars to prop up these poorly-run companies. We can give them loans with strings attached, force them to go through bankruptcy, wipe out the shareholders but preserve the structu…

Or you know, make up for the missed opportunity of 2008/2009, where the government could have bailed out underwater homeowners so that the bailout would have trickled up to the mortgage holders, instead of pouring money into banks and letting people suffer. Thanks, Obama.

Canada's CERB and CECRA have been doing wonders to keep ordinary people either afloat or employed, trickling up to small businesses all over.

(I don't mind your plan either, but it involves more per-company hand-holding than simply giving out generous unemployment and employment-support benefits)

Re: Busted retailers use bankruptcy to break leases by the thousands

#199
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, other people will take their place, this is how capitalism works. Let the rich lose everything.

Sure, other people will pick up the pieces but that doesn’t mean much to the blue collar worker who is out of a job for 2 years while someone “takes their place”.

I think it is better to reinforce social safety net programs for individuals (unemployment, food stamps, section 8 housing, etc) than it is to subsidize businesses. Businesses can restructure and re-allocate assets through sales, mergers, or even bankruptcy. In particular subsidizing now obsolete business models is madness to me. Help individuals who need help (why did stimulus checks go to people who still had jobs or who were retired?) and make it as easy as possible for businesses to restructure.

Re: Busted retailers use bankruptcy to break leases by the thousands

#200
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gathered the issue is when the rich lose everything that snowballs into failing business and low to middle class unemployment surge.

No, other people will take their place, this is how capitalism works. Let the rich lose everything.

The rich may indeed deserve to lose everything ... or not, depending on your perspective.

But what's equally important is ... if they are going to lose everything, how much of the social, economic and political infrastructure do they destroy on the way down?

It may well be that the era of the mall is over, for example. But malls crashing and burning as the mortgages associated with them fail is very different than a slower process in which there is time to think about repurposing and to give those directly affected to contemplate their options.

Post reply on HN