Downsizing stores - even Wal-Mart?
Yup. The SuperCenter type stores were already going smaller because of better distribution channels. But now we're hearing more and more about smaller store formats. Here's David Bodamer's post on the topic.
TALF and Ratings - Get Out Your Cash!
Here's the latest gloom and doom piece -- perhaps warranted, too -- this time in the Journal . The point? It is great that the government finally got on the darn bandwagon by including CMBS and commercial properties in TALF, but that's just not enough. Now, if we are going to have all this bailout money in the first place (we will not get into the philosophical or practical arguments of how to repay all this debt) including the commercial sector is important in my opinion. But, as the story points out, only top-rated debt is eligible. And S&P is telling us that it may downgrade a boatload of properties, thus rendering them ineligible for TALF money. A lot of people blame the ratings agencies for getting us into this mess in the first place by rating deals AAA that had no business being so. And now when they want to clean up the mess by downgrading these deals, it could create another, even larger, problem. Jeez. The moral? Owners are going to either have to pony up ...
Comments
Post a Comment