A hedge-fund manager known for wagering on the demise of the weakest American malls is raising the stakes, betting some of the hardest-hit shopping centers are in a death spiral, the Wall Street Journal reported. Eric Yip, chief investment officer of Alder Hill Management, has been buying a credit default swap index known as the CMBX. It tracks the values of mortgages backed by commercial property. Yip’s investment goes up in value when shopping centers, whose debt is reflected in the index, struggle to make payments or default on their loans. Alder Hill is betting against the riskiest loans to weaker malls with high debt and tepid prospects. The New York hedge fund disclosed this in a report in January 2017, though it didn’t disclose the amount of its bet. Read more. (Subscription required.)
Occupancy issues are at the heart of many significant retail cases, as detailed in the ABI publication Retail and Office Bankruptcy: Landlord/Tenant Rights, available at the ABI Store.