by David Bodamer October 30th, 2008
THOUGH many retailers are closing and cutting back, Teen Vogue is taking its franchise to the mall.
The magazine is opening a store, called the Teen Vogue Haute Spot, in the Mall at Short Hills in New Jersey. But the magazine does not intend to sell merchandise.
Instead, the store will be a place for girls to relax, try on clothes and drink smoothies — all while marketers woo them.
“We feel we’ve created a retail environment that doubled as a place where they could come together, be girls, and shop together,” said Laura McEwen, the publisher of Teen Vogue.
The Haute Spot is a so-called pop-up concept, meaning that the store is not permanent. The location will be open Nov. 28 through Dec. 26.
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Related Topics: News, Quirky, Retail |
by David Bodamer October 30th, 2008
Turmoil in the credit markets and economic weakness has virtually frozen the commercial property markets, with buyers reluctant to commit as prices fall and sellers refusing to deal unless forced to by financing constraints, a panel of real estate financiers said Wednesday.
With vacancies predicted to rise for nearly all property types and rents expected to fall, office, retail, hotel and industrial holdings are likely to drop in value in the coming year, making it difficult to underwrite any transactions, the panel of experts said at a meeting of the Urban Land Institute here.
“It’s like a time out: Nobody wants to do anything until they can see with a little more clarity,” said Michael Fascitelli, president of Vornado Realty Trust. “It is very hard to operate in this environment of volatility we’re seeing. It’s like we’ve been hit with a 100-year flood 15 times in the last two months.”
Vornado, a publicly traded real estate investment trust that owns more than 100 million square feet of property, has lost about $10 billion in market capitalization in the last year as REIT shares have been battered by the spreading financial crisis.
“I don’t think this is a blip. We’ve gone far past a blip,” said Randy Reiff, senior managing director for J.P. Morgan in New York. “We’re in a protracted, massive restructuring of our capital markets. Even the lenders who are out lending are slowing down right now. And that is only the people who are accustomed to high-risk, opportunistic investing who don’t believe they have to buy at the bottom.”
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Related Topics: Investment, News, Trends |
by David Bodamer October 30th, 2008
During his two hour long presentation, Pershing Square Capital Management’s, William Ackman made a compelling argument for Target to unlock the equity of its real estate without losing control of its buildings by spinning off the land into a Target Inflation Protected REIT. Ackman’s business case revolved around a handful of key points:
1)Target would retain control of its buildings and brand
2)The deal would improve Target’s access to capital
3)And decrease its capital needs
The New York Times has more.
William Ackman, the activist investor and hedge-fund manager, proffered an idea on Wednesday that he claimed was worth billions. He wants Target Corporation, the large discount chain, to sell the land underneath its stores to a new unit set up for the purpose. Target, he proposes, would pay rent to the spinoff, with existing Target shareholders gaining stakes in the new real estate business.
The supposed benefit? Mr. Ackman foresees a big increase in the total value the stock market would attach to a sliced-up Target, as much as 74 percent by his reckoning. That would include a payday of several billion dollars for Mr. Ackman’s hedge fund, Pershing Square Capital Management, which owns nearly 10 percent of Target.
The potential cost? According to several analysts and Target itself, the complicated new setup would hurt Target’s credit rating and thereby raise its cost of borrowing, perhaps undermining the company’s ability to survive the economic downturn. And the company believes a sliced-and-diced Target would ultimately have less control over its stores, the lifeblood of the business.
The plan might lead to transitory gains in the short run, but in the long run, “the retailer would be on much shakier ground, so to speak,” wrote Carol Levenson, director of research for Gimme Credit, a bond research firm. In an e-mail message, she added that “with overleveraged retailers going under right and left, and inhospitable lending and commercial paper markets,” the timing of such a transaction could not be worse.
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Related Topics: Finance, Investment, Management & Leasing, News, Retail, Retail Real Estate |
