Come Clean in 2013
| Our headline is the advice Equity Property's Sam Zell gave yesterday to alumni of the University of Chicago business school. He says that the $39 billion sale of his downtown office portfolio was common sense: he got an offer he couldn't refuse. | |
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Sam says this recovery will be slow, with so few jobs coming online. (It'll resemble "an upward slanting L" more than a U or a V, he adds, in what we think is a nod to Sesame Street?s 40th anniversary.) He also thinks commercial real estate will lag, with lenders and borrowers being happy to ?pretend and extend? as long as they're not losing money. He supports the idea of a casino in Chicago to bring it back to its place as the #1 convention destination in the country. (We agree, and we've written the slogan:What happens in Chicago, goes to the grave with us. Then votes.) | |
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Flint Creek Partners' John Nikolich says he hopes to learn from Sam's mistakes. Here with Newport Advisors' Patrick Hunt and Inland Real Estate Corporation's Richard Lippert, John's company is currently working on a new joint venture with HSA Commercial Real Estate on its portfolio of 10M SF of industrial space. |
