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evident in the age of Amazon, is brutal, dark, terrifying, and has to be your North Star in this crisis. To make this
puts their very survival at risk. For the retail landlord, this operational, real and grounded, retail landlords need
truth means that somewhere between 25% and 60% of its tools to quickly know where they need to devote their
tenants are unable to pay their rent, and need rent relief… attention and energy to not only survive, but to leverage
or else. the learnings and best practices of
their peers.
That’s a lot of effort to listen to and understand each
tenant’s specific case, and get to the right conclusion, Case in point, the tools below are well within reach and
be they a national chain with a healthy balance sheet, being utilized by many of the savviest landlords:
a merchant in an already struggling retail category
or a cash-strapped mom and pop. Aside from the 1. Surfacing Key Lease Provisions: One of the first
inordinate amount of time involved by a retail landlord requirements of the crisis, where virtually every retailer
to communicate with all its tenants, the challenge is to was impacted, was the need to understand the dura-
parse between who’s being fair, who’s taking advantage, bility of the Lease itself. Were there co-tenancy provi-
who can be saved and is worth fighting for, and for whom sions, go dark clauses, force majeure or termination
this is (all but) the final nail in the coffin. rights? Quickly pinpointing and surfacing this data
across the portfolio was and is key to making the best
The unfortunate truth is that everyone in this narrative decision in real time.
has to write a check. The tenant has rent and overhead to
cover. The landlord has payroll, mortgages, vendors and 2. Daily Rent Collections Reporting: Most collections
investors who need to be paid. Hard times indeed. reporting is actually delinquency reporting, since in
normal times, only the outliers don’t pay. But these are
A Crisis is a Terrible Thing to Waste not normal times, and far more than the outliers aren’t
Longtime Intel CEO Andy Grove famously said that “Bad paying timely, making this a cash crisis. As a result,
companies are Destroyed by crisis, good companies the spotlight is on the daily cash collected. Good,
Survive them, and great companies are Improved by accurate reporting makes it easy to look at daily cash
them.” I would submit that the “great company” mindset collected by portfolio, property or tenant.

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