Because of the holidays and the crippling blizzard last week, there's not a ton to catch up on in the retail real estate world. The period between Christmas and this past weekend was a quiet one for the industry.
However, now that the holidays are over, things are starting to come back to life. That means the post-holiday shopping season shakeout is beginning. We'll find out the real winners and losers and how that affects their futures.
On that front, the situation with Borders is continuing to
evolve. The bookseller had a tough holiday shopping season and now bankruptcy may be in the cards.
Per Daily Finance:
Borders has been telling some of its key vendors -- including some of the largest publishing houses -- that it's delaying year-end 2010 payments for inventory. One of those houses is Hachette Book Group (LGDDY), whose CEO David Young told the The Wall Street Journal that Borders has indeed delayed its most recent payment to the publisher, adding that Hachette "will decide shortly whether to continue shipping new books to Borders."
In addition, readers of The Street see Office Depot as a likely takeover target in 2011. TheStreet also identified 17 possible retail M&A deals we may see this year.
Here are some other news and notes from around the industry.
- Commercial property loans pose new threat (Financial Times)
- Restaurant Performance Index slips in November (Calculated Risk)
- Malls Bet on MindSmack's FastMall App to Draw Shoppers Back (Bloomberg)
- Why commercial real estate is still a gamble (em>Fortune)
- Centro Takeover War Gets Bigger—Blackstone Is In (Wall Street Journal)
- Schwarzman's Real Estate Muscle Shows in Blackstone's Centro Bid (em>New York Times)
- Potential BJ's takeover once again in spotlight (Boston Globe)