Developers Diversified Realty Corp. Q2 2009 Earnings Call Transcript

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2009-07-24 13:49:19.0

Tags: Tenant, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Retail Company, Industry, Call Transcript, Earnings, Developers Diversified Realty Corp., CIT, Retail, Strategy, Financial Accounting, Management, Finance, Seeking Alpha

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Jay Haberman – Goldman Sachs.

Jay Haberman – Goldman Sachs

I'm here with [Johan] as well. I guess, Scott, just to start, could you comment a bit just broadly on what you think implications of CIT might be for the industry and have you made any sort of factoring in there in terms of guidance? And as well, can you comment specifically where you expect Sam's Store to trend in the latter half of the year?

Scott Wolstein

I'll comment very briefly on CIT, but I think Dan Hurwitz is probably closer to that situation. Clearly CIT is a major lender to the retail industry, but not a major lender to the big box national tenants that comprise the majority of our revenue. I would expect that if CIT cease to be a factor in the industry it would have an effect on retail generally, but I would expect the impact would be probably greater in the malls and neighborhoods centers than it would be in the large community centers. But I'll turn to Dan to elaborate on that.

Dan Hurwitz

Well, Jay, the CIT issue is one we follow pretty carefully because it concerns us. It's another negative headline for retail for sure. There's 300,000 retailers that currently have some financing relationship with CIT. Some of our bankrupt tenants, particularly Circuit City, had a long relationship with CIT. Our biggest concern, obviously, would be if the lack of funding from CIT interfered with inventory that would be coming in within the next two months for the holiday season, it could have systemic effect to retail.

And we've been working with ICSC, we've been working with NRF and we've been talking to a number of retailers to try to get the risk that we perceive across to, not just government officials, but others within the sector who could have an impact on the outcome of this. There's nothing positive that can happen for our sector for the CIT going away and we're watching it pretty closely. They are a huge supplier of capital for, not just retailers, but also for vendors. And if the supply chain of inventory gets interrupted at the holiday season that could have a material negative impact on the sector.

Jay Haberman – Goldman Sachs

And just switching gears for a moment, could you walk through I guess the bid as spreads on asset sales. I mean it seems, as cap rates seem to be moving above 9%, are you seeing a lot more interest on the part of buyers?

 

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