Retail Tenants

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The level of tenant enquiry for neighbourhood shopping centres in the six months to June 2017 has fallen compared to the previous six month period, according to a recent JLL survey. 
The JLL Survey of Centre Managers interviewed landlords of shopping centres managed by JLL.
Tenant enquiry remained below the neutral 0.0% mark for the third straight survey, with a net balance of -5.9% compared with -6.4% in December 2016 and -7.8% in June 2016,  highlighting the challenges faced by leasing executives and centre managers in attracting new tenants in the current economic climate.
Figure 4 highlights the “net balance” in enquiry levels between December 2011 and June 2017. 
<a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/images/2017/10/09/Oct11CommPropChartFig1.png" target="_blank">Click to enlarge</a>
<img src="https://www.urban.com.au/images/2017/10/09/Oct11CommPropChartFig1.png" alt="">
The results were similar to the previous two surveys, JLL said. As with previous surveys, the overwhelming response was that centre managers expected enquiry levels to remain the same. A strong turn around in retail fortunes is not anticipated in the short-term.
Enquiries were dominated by “mum and dad” retailers, which reflects both the high number of neighbourhood centres within the Centre Managers’ Survey and the cautious approach being taken by national chains to expansion. 
<a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/images/2017/10/09/Oct11CommPropChartFig2.png" target="_blank">Click to enlarge</a>
<img src="https://www.urban.com.au/images/2017/10/09/Oct11CommPropChartFig2.png" alt="">
<a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/images/2017/10/09/Oct11CommPropChartFig3.png" target="_blank">Click to enlarge</a>
<img src="https://www.urban.com.au/images/2017/10/09/Oct11CommPropChartFig3.png" alt="">
Enquiry tends to be predominantly from food-based retailers (both food catering and specialty food retailers) and casual mall retailers (see next section). 
There was some improvement in enquiry from food catering (takeaway food &amp; beverage) as well as kiosks. Kiosks provide prospective retailers with a lower level commitment in terms of total space leased and overall rent. Enquiry from the discount variety sector was relatively weak, with over 50% of respondents indicating enquiry was weak or very weak.
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Tenant enquiry at neighbourhood centres fell in six months to June: JLL

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Leading retailer Solomon Lew has said landlords were offering cheaper rents to his rival international brands, while charging local brands unreasonable rents, as the company decided to exit from Melbourne's Bourke Street Mall because of what it said were high rents.
Retail groups say the decision highlights the pressing need for more retailers to speak out about the unreasonable request of retail landlords.
A few months back, fast-food chain <a href="https://www.urban.com.au/expert-insights/investing/71650-sumosalad-puts-two-outlets-into-voluntary-administration-in-rent-dispute-with-landlord-westfield" target="_blank">SumoSalad too accused landlord Westfield</a> of high rents and put two of its 20 companies into voluntary administration.
Earlier in the week, Lew and Premier Investments’ chief executive Mark McInnes spoke out about the tough rental conditions for local incumbents in shopping strips like the mall during its results presentation.
McInnes said the decision to close the Portmans and Just Jeans flagships in the Melbourne shopping strip came down to “unrealistic rent”, the SmartCompany quoted him as saying.
McInnes said the company would be closing the two flagship retail sites next month because retail landlords have not come to the table to discuss better deals. This is despite the fact it would cost landlords more in the long run to replace them as tenants in the spaces that they have leased for decades.
The lifestyle and fashion retailer, which operates Portmans, Just Jeans, Peter Alexander and Smiggle, clocked sales of $1.09 billion with net profit after tax of $105 million.
The company pointed to the incentives offered by landlords to international retailers to take up space in strips like the mall, suggesting that Premier Investments could exit more retail sites if things aren’t adjusted.
“Today, we announced that unless landlords cut us the same rental, and incentive deals they’re offering international competitors in the young fashion market, we may need to close many more Dotti stores. The cost to landlords of replacing us is far higher than if they solve for us,” McInnes said.
Separately, Lew and McInnes also spoke against unreasonable landlords on Ross Greenwood's show on 2GB.
“If they’re raising the rent to a level where it’s no longer viable, we are going to move on,” said Lew.
When Greenwood said if this meant that if "the landlords can’t come to the party with some sort of a deal… if there’s no deal, they’re gone,” Lew referred to landlords' unfair rental practices.
"You’d be offended if your competitors were offered rents that were two-thirds lower than your rent and you would be offended if they received a capital contribution for refurbishment and for building a new store,” he said.
“And that’s exactly what’s going on in the industry and so we’re taking a stance and unless it’s in the interests of our shareholders and the brand, we’re going to move on.”
But he said that it didn’t mean that the retailing giant will not open stores at other places.
McInnes echoed Lew on the show, saying the decision to close the Bourke St stores means that the company isn’t going to stand for that (landlords wooing international brands with lower rents).
“We’re walking away from $5 million of sales, but ultimately they’d be unprofitable sales because the landlord would not charge us a realistic rent,” he said.
McInnes pointed to the strength of the company's brands and said that some landlords did understand that “with a portfolio of 1,100 stores, we are one of the largest rent payers, if not the largest rent payer in Australia and they don’t want mass vacancies in their centres”.
He said some landlords were not being honest with their rents and turnover and Lew and Premier Investments was targeting these landlords.
McInnes went further, saying the company did not want to close stores but were forced to because landlords were unrealistic about rents.
“I guarantee that that landlord in Bourke Street, it will cost them millions of dollars in capital incentives to remake those stores and they will get far less rent than what we were paying.”
Meanwhile, he added that online sales had picked up in the past few months and “the customer is choosing that channel as a place to shop... and landlords have to accept that this is a change in their sales structure based on what customers want.”
Lew said that several retail businesses were running behind on their rents and landlords were not raising the rents for these.
On Myer’s performance, the former deputy chairman of Coles Myer said that in spite of the public float and two rounds of capital raising since 2015, the company’s value had eroded by almost $2 billion and it was now worth $600 million, so clearly its strategy was not working.
In terms of the business itself, he said Myer's moving to a concession model mean margins were down and it was also having problems with their own purchases.
"They look very poor… they look like opportunity shops and not like a Myer department store," said Lew. 
 
 
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Unreasonable landlords offering global retailers better deal, says Solomon Lew

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SumoSalad’s boss has put two of the 20 companies in his group into voluntary administration, escalating the tension between the fast food chain and Westfield about leasing charges.
After attempts over six months to negotiate cuts in leasing charges, SumoSalad CEO and co-founder Luke Baylis put two companies, Sumo Westfield Leasing Pty Ltd and Sumo Leasing Pty Ltd, into voluntary administration to force several Westfield centres to the negotiating table, according to Chanticleer in The Australian Financial Review.
These companies hold the leases over about 12 SumoSalad outlets in Westfield shopping centres managed by the Scentre Group. SumoSalad has a total of 104 stores and Baylis says the dispute will not affect their trading, Chanticleer reported.
The dispute started after the shopping centres decided to dramatically expand the number of food outlets within shopping centres, according to Baylis.
Over the past three years foot traffic in shopping centres has only risen about six per cent but the number of food outlets has tripled or quadrupled, hitting SumoSalad’s profitability, Baylis added.
"Sumo has been working with landlords over the past few months to negotiate more realistic food court leases for our stores, with no success," Baylis said in a statement. 
"Regrettably, landlords have opened the door to more and more food businesses in recent times, as well as opening whole new eating areas within the same precinct, which has essentially cannibalised existing tenants.
"One shopping centre went from 34 food outlets to 93 in a three-year period with flat foot traffic growth.”
Putting stores into voluntary administration will allow SumoSalad's franchisees to exit without paying out the remainder of the lease, if Scentre does not cut the rent.
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<div>He said talks with landlords have failed, with landlords demanding that Sumo and its franchisees collectively pay millions of dollars to surrender the existing shopping centre leases.</div>
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"This is an untenable and unfair demand on small business owners, which would send our franchisees in those shopping centres broke,” he said.
"Placing the leasing entities into voluntary administration is the only way to protect our franchisees, and we are confident this will help us restructure our leasing entities in a manner that will create more favourable conditions for our franchisees."
One of the leases affected by the decision is in the Westfield at Chatswood. 
A spokeswoman for Scentre Group said the “Scentre Group works closely with its retail partners in an effort to resolve trading issues.”
Baylis said the addition of eating outlets over the past couple of years had hit SumoSalad outlet in the centre. He says the lease payments should be cut by 30 per cent.
Earlier this year, Scentre Group chief executive Peter Allen said his company was closely monitoring the rash of new voluntary administrations among retailers. 
Scentre has avoided exposure to specialty fashion chains because of poor consumer demand.
Another shopping centre owner to face problems because of companies going into voluntary administration is GPT.
The collapse of the Top Shop specialty fashion chain has impacted all the leading shopping centre owners.
Baylis said the SumoSalad is opening franchise outlets in hospitals, airports, service stations and universities.
The company has recently entered a partnership with Caltex called Foodiary in Condord in Sydney's west.
Baylis said SumoSalad had been considering its strategic shift away from shopping centre food courts for some time but it had only become a reality following the trialling of pilot sites.
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SumoSalad in rent dispute with landlord Westfield 

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The Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 (NSW) which, but for part 11, will commence on 30 November 2016 gives “eligible tenants” certain rights.
Section 258 of the Act requires landlords (or sub-lessors) to notify the owners corporation of any tenants (or sub-tenants) by way of a tenancy notice.
At a minimum, the following information must be provided: the lot number, names of all tenants, an address for service of notices (which may be an email address), the date the tenancy is to start and the name of the agent acting on behalf of the lot owner (if any).
Once notice has been provided the tenant or tenants are eligible tenants.
If the strata scheme has received tenants notices for at least half the lots in the scheme a tenants meeting must be held 14 days prior to the Annual General Meeting (AGM) to allow eligible tenants to elect one tenant representative to the strata committee.
Eligible tenants must, at least 7 days before any AGM or extraordinary general meeting (EGM), be given a copy of the agenda. However if there is a noticeboard for the scheme required by the by-laws then the agenda need only be displayed on the noticeboard. Note not all meeting documents need be provided to eligible tenants.
Tenant representatives have a right to attend strata committee meetings, AGMs &amp; EGMs but
<ul>
<li>have no right to vote or to address the meeting (unless authorised);</li>
<li>cannot put motions on the agenda or nominate a person for office;</li>
<li>cannot act as an officer of the owners corporation;</li>
<li>are not counted for the purposes of quorum for strata committee meetings; and</li>
<li>may be excluded from discussions on financial statements, audit reports, levying or recovery of contributions and strata renewal</li>
</ul>
Tenant representatives must also be provided with notice of any strata committee meeting and a copy of the strata committee meeting minutes.
Eligible tenants have a right to attend an AGM or EGM but, unless they hold the proxy on behalf of the owner of their lot (or another lot in the scheme), they have no voting rights, no right to address the meeting and may be asked to leave if there are discussions on financial statements, audit reports, levying or recovery of contributions or strata renewal.
Note all tenants have a right to receive a copy of the by-laws for the scheme (and the strata management statement if applicable) within 14 days of becoming eligible for possession of the property. Your landlord or sub-lessor must provide this information.
The article first appeared on <a href="https://kerinbensonlawyers.com.au/nsw-fact-sheet-6-strata-reforms-tenants-rights/" target="_blank">Kerin Benson Lawyers</a>.
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Property 101: New South Wales strata reforms and tenants rights

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Australia offers a lot of untapped potential for global retailers, with a new survey highlighting that less than a third of major retail groups have a presence here and many wanting to set up shop Down Under.
Australia ranked 31st of the 61 countries surveyed on the penetration of global retailers in CBRE’s “How Global is the Business of Retail?”.
The rankings were topped by the UK, with 57.5 percent of international retailers present, followed by China (56.9 percent) and the United Arab Emirates (59.3 percent)
In contrast, just 28.7 percent of the retailers surveyed have a base Down Under.
CBRE national retail director Alistair Palmer said the results point to the opportunity for global brands in the Australian market.
“While global retailers have increasingly targeted Australia, the penetration rate is still very low,” Palmer said.
“What we have seen is a considerable shift over the past five years in the types of brands targeting this market and the level of interest in new opportunities. This is expected to translate to a considerable uptick in offshore leasing activity in the short to medium term.”
The retailers were selected based on a variety of sources including surveys or retailers’ turnover and brand presence, global and national retail directories and the views of the local CBRE professionals on the dominant retailers in their markets. From these sources, 334 leading international retailers were identified as representatives of the global retail community. For each of the retailers in the sample, research was undertaken to identify whether they had a presence in each of the 61 countries and 191 cities included in the study.
CBRE’s Australian head of retail tenant representation, Tim Starling, said the focus on Australia had most recently been highlighted by Decathlon, one of the world's largest sporting goods retailers.
Decathlon has an online presence in Australia with at least 30 stores to follow.
TJX, more commonly known as TJ Maxx in the US, has also established a beachhead in Australia after acquiring the 35-store Trade Secret chain.
“TJX is a Fortune 500 company that is recognised as one of the world’s leading retailers,” Starling said.
“They have ambitions for 200 stores in Australia, encompassing several brands, with CBRE assisting in their Trade Secret roll out.”
Palmer said the success of the St Collins Lane redevelopment in Melbourne had been another litmus test of international retailer interest in Australia, with the project attracting international brands such as Sandro, Maje, Reiss Kooples, Zadig and Voltaire.
CBRE says it was involved with the first deals here for Zara, Uniqlo, Microsoft and Tesla.
The How Global report says that 19 percent of retailers surveyed intend to expand into Australia – a high proportion, given that Australia accounts for just 2 percent of the world economy.
High consumption per capita, rising tourism levels and the lower AUD are all driving demand, which is in turn pushing up retail rents given a lack of available space in the major CBD markets, it said.
Fashion retailers (encompassing luxury, mid-range and specialist clothing brands) dominate the list of retailer intent of expanding into Australia, with a high percentage of these seeking 101-250sqm of space.
London has retained its number one spot in the city rankings, with 57.9 percent of international retailers having a presence there. Dubai was hot on the heels with 57 percent, closely followed by Shanghai (54.4 percent) and New York (46.6 percent). 
Singapore and Moscow were joint fifth with 46 percent of retailers present.
Sydney was the top Australian market at 65th place, followed by Melbourne at 78th.
Hong Kong was the top market for new entrants, attracting 73 new brands, up from 58 in 2014. Singapore was a close second attracting 63 new brands, while last year’s top market, Tokyo, slid to third place after a slowdown in domestic demand.
Globally, Coffee &amp; Restaurant brands (F&amp;B) accounted for 20 percent of new entrants overall, followed by Luxury &amp; Business Fashion (19 percent), Mid-Range Fashion (18 percent) and Specialist Clothing (17 percent) retailers.
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Global retailers set sights on Down Under: CBRE survey

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Beaudesert Fair, a neighbourhood shopping centre in Beaudesert has recently had two new retailers move in – Help Enterprises and Dollar Deals.
The centre is anchored by Coles and Target Country and features 18 specialty stores.
Colliers International are exclusively managing and leasing the centre.
Jason Martin, senior executive of retail leasing at Colliers International who negotiated the leases said the centre which has recently been refurbished has only two tenancies remaining for lease.
“There are currently two tenancies remaining for lease, 112sqm and 71sqm, which would suit health and beauty, fashion and food operators,” said Mr. Martin.
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