While the Wall Street crowd has since moved on from shorting malls, aka the “Big Short 2.0”, in some distinct cases with massive profits, to shorting hotels which as we first presented here earlier this year has emerged as the “Big Short 3.0” trade, this weekend we got a vivid reminder of what Bloomberg dubbed “carnage” among mall tenants when two major mall landlords filed for bankruptcy this weekend, following their constantly growing list of bankrupt clients into Chapter 11 protection.
Two mall REITs, Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust and CBL & Associates Properties filed for Chapter 11 protection on Sunday, citing pandemic-induced pressures on their tenants and, by implication, themselves. Together the two REITs account for 87 million square feet of real estate across the U.S., according to court filings.
CBL, based in Chattanooga, counts 107 properties in 26 states in its portfolio, including enclosed malls, outlets and open-air retail centers…
Malls of the 20th century going under…allowing Bezos (Amazon) the opp to buy on the cheap and turn those empty hulls into amazon hubs. We thought walfart was bad….enjoy the show