Real Estate Daily News Buzz is designed to give news snippets to readers that our (yet to be award winning) editors thought you could use to start your day. They come from various business perspectives, real estate, government, the Fed, local news, and the stock markets to save you time. Here you will find the headlines and what the news buzz of the day will be.
Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 14.57 points, or 0.1%, to close at 17,230.54. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index gained 0.55 points, or 0.03%, to 2,033.66. The NASDAQ composite climbed 18.78 points, or 0.4%, to 4,905.47.
Benchmark U.S. crude lost $1.37 to close at $45.89 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, used to price international oils, dropped $1.85 to $48.61 a barrel in London. In other futures trading on the Nymex, wholesale gasoline fell 7.7 cents to close at $1.251 a gallon. Heating oil fell 4.8 cents to close at $1.449 a gallon. Natural gas edged up 1.2 cents to close at $2.442 per 1,000 cubic feet.
DID STAPLES INC. JUST START SOMETHING BIG FOR CHRISTMAS? - Wal-Mart won the prize this year -- or the most catcalls -- for hyping its Christmas sales the earliest launching its holiday layaway program on Aug. 28
MCDONALD'S IS CLOSE TO DECIDING ON REAL-ESTATE STRUCTURE - McDonald's Corp., working on a company turnaround, is close to deciding what to do with its massive U.S. real-estate portfolio
Private Equity Real Estate Hiring Gets SEC Scrutiny - “Private equity funds that specialize in real estate are attracting regulatory scrutiny over hiring that can boost the firm’s fees while sticking investors with higher expenses, Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White said Friday. SEC examiners are looking into poorly disclosed business relationships that benefit advisers to private equity funds, White said at a speech in New York.” (Bloomberg)
Worldwide Real Estate Asset Growth Spectacular Again - “Real estate worldwide assets of the largest real estate money managers returned to a pre-crisis growth rate, up 20% for the 12 months ended June 30, buoyed by increased capital flows from foreign investors, Pensions & Investments' annual survey shows. While worldwide real estate assets have been growing steadily since 2011, they had not reached the 20% growth level since 2006, when total assets were up 20.7%. Last year, total assets grew by 13.7%.” (Pensions & Investments)
PANERA TRIES OUT GLUTEN-FREE: SANDWICH CHAIN ADDS GLUTEN-CONSCIOUS BREAD TO THE MENU - Panera has already banned an extensive list of artificial ingredients and colors from its items, and now the sandwich and bakery fast casual chain is completing their nutritious makeover with new gluten-free items.
THE ELEPHANT IN THE RETAIL ROOM: GOING NATIVE VS KEEPING LEGACY - Mobile now accounts for more than a quarter of all e-commerce transactions globally, and that number is increasing rapidly as our shopping behavior continues to shift toward mobile first.
Fresh Market Founder Explores Bid for Company - “Fresh Market Inc (TFM.O) founder and board chairman Ray Berry is exploring a bid to take the U.S. specialty grocery retailer private with the help of a private equity firm, according to people familiar with the matter. Berry, who has a 4.1 percent stake in the company, has reached out to several buyout firms, seeking a private equity partner in order to put together an offer for Fresh Market, the people said this week.” (Reuters)
NYC’s Stuyvesant Town Said for Sale With Blackstone Weighting Bid - “Manhattan’s Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village apartment complex is being prepared for a sale, five years after its prior owners defaulted on the mortgage and walked away from the property in one of the biggest collapses from the last decade’s real estate boom. CWCapital Asset Management, the loan servicer that has been in control of Stuyvesant Town on behalf of bondholders, has hired Eastdil Secured LLC to advise on the sale.” (Bloomberg)
THIS HIP ATHLETIC WEAR COMPANY DRESSES YALE ATHLETES AND ASPIRES TO COMPETE WITH NIKE - Oiselle (pronounced wah-sell, as in Mademoiselle) has aspirations of competing with Nike.
WHAT WALMART'S WAGE WOES MEAN FOR GAP, TJM - Walmart shares continued to tumble Friday, after the world's largest retailer put a price tag on the billions of dollars in costs it would rack up as part of its previously announced wage increases.
Largest Senior Housing REITs Pencil Out Divergent Plays - “With chatter that blockbuster portfolio transactions in senior housing are harder to come by, HCP Inc. (NYSE: HCP), Welltower Inc. (NYSE: HCN) and Ventas (NYSE: VTR) are placing bets on higher yields in the hospital system space. But while Ventas has staked its claim with the ‘beachhead’ investment in hospitals by acquiring Ardent for $1.75 billion, the CEO of Welltower is talking about putting acute hospitals ‘out of business.’” (Senior Housing News)
Lawsuit Says Manhattan Real Estate Was Used to Launder Money “A banker and a former politician from Kazakhstan tried to launder tens of millions of dollars of stolen money through New York real-estate holdings, a civil lawsuit alleges. The men allegedly conspired with New York developer Joseph Chetrit to hide at least $40 million by investing in a former Manhattan hotel and the Cabrini Medical Center, according to a complaint filed on Oct. 12 by Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, and one of the nation’s biggest lenders, BTA Bank.” (Wall Street Journal)
DANNY MEYER: TIPPING 'DEMEANING' FOR WORKERS - Eliminating tips will let restaurants provide better services because higher wages will attract better workers, restaurateur Danny Meyers told CNBC on Friday.
AMERICAN APPAREL LAYS OUT POST-BANKRUPTCY PLAN - If American Apparel gets the bankruptcy turnaround it envisions, the fashion chain will soon have its most profitable years ever, according to court documents on Thursday.
Boomers Feeling Squeezed by the Rise in Rents - Rising rents have been cited as a reason millennials aren’t moving out of their parents’ basements. But higher rents could force some boomers to move in with their children. So says Don Lawby, president of the Real Property Management franchise, a property management company based in Utah. He says it is shaping up to be a crisis for some boomers for the following reasons.” (MarketWatch)
Fresh & Easy Eyes Chapter 11 - “Fresh & Easy could file for its second Chapter 11 bankruptcy in two years in the next few days, industry sources told SN. However, if the company can find a buyer for some or all of the 103 remaining locations, that could postpone a filing, sources said. Fresh & Easy was acquired in 2013 by Yucaipa Cos., a Los Angeles-based investment firm, from United Kingdom-based Tesco following a bankruptcy filing.” (Supermarket News)
HERE'S WHY RESTAURANTS ARE EATING WAL-MART'S WHOLE FOODS LUNCH - When companies from Wal-Mart Stores to Whole Foods are struggling to sell groceries, the chances are more likely changing preferences than management screwups.
UPS TARGETS DISCOUNT SHARING WITH NEW FEE ON RETAILERS - United Parcel Service Inc.'s new round of rate increases include a fee to help make up for cybershopping sites and big-box retailers' sharing of generous shipping discounts with vendors.
Julien Studley, Real Estate Broker Who Began Career in a Bedroom, Dies at 88 “Julien J. Studley, who arrived in New York as a young refugee from Europe and began to build a commercial real estate empire by sending penny postcards to prospective tenants from the bedroom of his fourth-floor walk-up, died on Tuesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 88. The cause was brain cancer, Reid Richter, a friend of the family, said.” (New York Times)
Related to Take 270K SF for Itself at Hudson Yards “The Related Companies has lined up a tenant that will take nearly 300,000 square feet in its northern Hudson Yards tower when the 90-story building is finished in 2019: the Related Companies. The developer is carving out an office condo for itself spanning six floors near the top of 30 Hudson Yards for a total of roughly 270,000 square feet, a source with knowledge of the firm’s plans told The Real Deal.” (The Real Deal)
NORDSTROM RACK COULD HAVE 300 LOCATIONS BY 2020 - Nordstrom Rack has been expanding rapidly this year, and the company has no plans of slowing down its pace of opening outlet stores, according to a WWD profile.
Chinese cyberattacks on US companies continue, report says — Chinese hacking attempts on American corporate intellectual property have occurred with regularity over the past three weeks, suggesting that China almost immediately began violating its newly minted cyberagreement with the United States, according to a newly published analysis by a cybersecurity company with close ties to the U.S. government. CrowdStrike, says it documented seven Chinese cyberattacks against U.S. technology and pharmaceuticals companies “where the primary benefit of the intrusions seems clearly aligned to facilitate theft of intellectual property and trade secrets.” One attack came the day after President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced their deal.
China’s economic growth declines to 6-year low — China’s economy decelerated in the latest quarter but stronger spending by consumers helped to avert a deeper downturn. The world’s second-largest economy grew by 6.9% in the three months ended in September, the slowest since early 2009 in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, data showed Monday. That was down from the previous quarter’s 7%. China’s economic prospects are being scrutinized around the world. Its slowdown has unnerved global markets and held down worldwide economic growth, especially in countries such as Brazil and Australia that export raw materials to China.