Is it that time already?
Posted by: Richard
Colliers International forecasts "a 50-50 chance of a recession" but "sees little evidence that a recession will occur.” They believe investment sales market will return to normality when the credit markets settle down and believe it could occur in Q1 or Q2 2008. They are also saying much will depend on the Federal Reserve, both in terms of setting monetary policy and providing reassurances that the banking system is sound and credit still available.
Posted by: Richard
Posted by: Richard
Costar reported that "Morgan Stanley Real Estate and Lennar Corp. formed a strategic land investment venture to acquire, develop, manage and sell residential real estate. Concurrent with its formation, the new investment venture acquired a diversified portfolio of land from Lennar."
The deal involved approximately 11,000 homesites in 32 communities in California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada and New Jersey. The site were a mix of raw land and partially and fully developed homesites in active and future communities. As of Sept. 30, the acquired properties had a net book value of approximately $1.3 billion and the sales price was $525 million.
By our calculation, that's 40% of the book value.
Posted by: Richard
CBRE Weekly Retail report reported that sporting-goods retailer Dick’s Sporting Goods announced late Monday that it had agreed to acquire privately held Chick’s Sporting Goods for about $40 million in cash and assumption of about $31 million debt. The deal, to be financed using Dick’s Sporting’s existing credit facility, is expected to add marginally to the company’s earnings in fiscal 2008 and is projected to be completed on or before Dec. 31. Chick’s operates 15 specialty sporting-goods stores in Southern California.
No word if Chick's will be converted. We have not been through a "Dick's" store, and will report back.
Posted by: Richard
Posted by: Richard
Plain Vanilla reports that "Louisville-based Papa John's International Inc. this week rolled out its text message ordering option at its 2,700 U.S. restaurants. It's a progression from the pizza maker's online ordering, which began in 2001 and now accounts for nearly 20 percent of its U.S. sales."
This strikes us the same way that Amazon has been serving up the "one click". Ordering pizza on a whim is perfect.
Posted by: Richard
BP Plc. said on Thursday it would sell all 700 of its U.S. owned-and-operated convenience stores to franchise owners, eliminating nearly 10,000 employees. The planned sale, which will take about two years to complete, states that potential buyers will sign 20-year franchise agreements requiring them to sell BP or ARCO branded fuels. The move is a continuation of BP's announcement in October to simplify its operations, a BP spokesman said. The sale will affect the jobs of 9,500 convenience store workers, 350 business-support staff and approximately 100 people within its pipelines and logistics operations. Large distributors will also buy some of the retail outlets, the company said.
Shell has been doing this already in Southern Cal with its gas stations. This is not too surprising.
Posted by: Richard
A just-released study by accounting and consulting firm BDO Seidman, LLP has revealed that online sales for “Cyber Monday,” the first Monday after Thanksgiving, will account for 12.3% of Internet sales this holiday season. “This year’s holiday survey of chief marketing officers demonstrates how ‘Cyber Monday’ has become the online equivalent of ‘Black Friday’ for America’s leading retailers,” said Doug Hart, a partner in the retail and consumer product practice at BDO Seidman. “It also indicates that while retailers are dedicating a measurable proportion (14.8%) of their total marketing budget to driving Internet sales this holiday season, a majority of the retailers are not conducting any special promotions as they see the convenience of online buying as a sufficient incentive to purchase through this medium.”
These findings are from the most recent edition of The BDO Seidman Retail Compass Survey which examined the opinions of 100 chief marketing officers at leading retailers nationwide regarding their expectations of the 2007 holiday shopping season.
Since Americans are worked to death and spending all their time at the office, the flip side is that employees get to sit around all day on "Black Monday" and shop on the web. This is pretty sad.
Posted by: Richard
Posted by: Richard
