🛏KKR Tips Hand re Art Van Furniture (Short Midwest Mattresses)🛏

n “💩Acosta = Not a Good Look, Carlyle💩,” we noted how FS KKR Capital Corp ($FSK), a publicly-traded business development corporation placed its Acosta Inc. loan “on nonaccrual” because it was, well, clearly sh*tting the bed. Ultimately, after riding the mark down to the basement, FSK offloaded the position. It wasn’t the only stain in its portfolio. In fact, as of the end of the third quarter, approximately 1.7% of the portfolio was on nonaccrual, up from 1.2% at the end of Q2. While this, in and of itself is hardly alarming, it does mean that there are other potential restructurings sitting on FSK’s books. Indeed, one loan contributing to this uptick was to a company called Art Van Furniture.

Founded in 1958, Michigan-headquartered Art Van Furniture is a furniture retail store chain with approximately 190 company-owned stores in nine states operating, thanks to various tack-on acquisitions, under various brands: Art Van Furniture, Art Van PureSleep, Scott Shuptrine Interiors, Levin Furniture, Levin Mattress and Wolf Furniture. The tack-on acquisitions were, presumably, part of the company’s growth strategy after being acquired by private equity overlords Thomas H. Lee Partners.

The Columbus Dispatch recently reported on Art Van’s strategy annnnnnnd it’s definitely a bit counter-intuitive:

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🐝Reality Check: Honey🐝

Paypal Inc. ($PYPL) made a big splash this week when it agreed to a $4b cash and stock acquisition of Honey, an LA-based deal-finding browser extension and mobile app. Yes, $4 BILLION. The company had only raised $49mm in funding soooooo…a lot of people just made one crazy return on investment.

Speaking of crazy, the company reportedly made “more than $100 million in revenue last year and it was profitable on a net income basis in 2018.” Profitably for a startup these days is crazy enough, we suppose, but THAT MULTIPLE. Holy

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⚡️Ride-Sharing is Vicious (Long Matchsticks)⚡️

Starting in 2016, Juno USA LP, a NY-centric ride-hailing company was able, in just 3.5 years, to become the third largest ride-hailing business in New York, counting 50k contracted drivers and 50k rides per day as key business drivers (pun intended). Now it is kaput. The company filed for bankruptcy earlier this week.

At its inception, the company differentiated itself by offering drivers restricted stock units (“RSUs”) “with the expectation that such an approach would result in an overall enhanced driving experience for drivers and, in turn, riders.” This is interesting because, obviously, it incentivizes drivers to be more attentive to Juno rides than Lyft and/or Uber but it obviously doesn’t address the demand side of the marketplace function. 50k rides per day sounds like a lot. Yet, it pales in comparison to its competition: according to the Taxi and Limousine Commission, in 2018, Uber Inc. ($UBER) tallied 400k trips per day in NYC and Lyft Inc. ($LYFT) collected 112k trips per day. Moreover, NYC taxis typically make about 300k trips per day. In total these are staggering numbers — even more so when you consider that taxis are going bankrupt in record-breaking numbers and Uber and Lyft are losing money like crazy (Uber’s loss, ex-stock-based compensation, was $800mm last quarter!). Ultimately, that differential compelled a merger of rivals: Israel-based GT Forge, d/b/a Gett, acquired Juno in Q2 ‘17 and transferred its riders to Juno. At the same time, Juno cashed out the driver RSUs, using other incentives (read: higher commissions of 10%) to maintain its supply-side.

As we all now know from the WeWork debacle, financial metrics for high growth startups are different than what restructuring professionals are used to. EBITDA is a foreign concept here: “success” is measured by revenue growth. Here’s Juno’s revenue trend:

• $218mm in 2017;

• $269mm in 2018 (23% growth) 😀; and

• $133mm in 2019. 😬

Juno does not, however, indicate what its operating costs and expenses were; it merely serves up excuses about early stage capital requirements and the need for monthly cash infusions from Gett. Over time, however, the operating expense burden coupled with “burdensome local regulations and escalating litigation defense costs” led to a 2019 YOY revenue decline of 34%. What the net loss was, however, is left unsaid in the company’s bankruptcy papers.

The litigation runs the gamut. The company has been sued by (a) former drivers for the termination of the RSU program (read: securities fraud); (b) riders for personal injuries allegedly caused in accidents during active Juno rides; (c) competitors for patent infringement; and (d) drivers, alleging that they are employees rather than independent contractors. It’s pretty hard to grow a business when you’re getting sued into oblivion and have poor business fundamentals. 👍

The City of New York really didn’t help those fundamentals. The company’s bankruptcy papers elucidate ride-hailing economics after NYC imposed mandatory minimums of $17.22/hour regardless of the number of rides undertaken during that time (something that Uber and Lyft continue to combat, including by freezing drivers out of the apps during low-demand times, something that irks the hell out of Bill De Blasio, apparently). Here’s how it works:

• Drivers are entitled to a minimum of $0.58/mile + $0.27 per minute. “Each of these figures is separately divided by a so-called “utilization rate,” which is calculated based on the frequency that a TNC sends trips to drivers while they are available for work. The current industrywide average utilization is 58%.” (Petition Note: this also means that 42% of the time, drivers are just moving around clogging up NYC streets).

• So, for a 10-mile trip that takes 30 minutes, you end up with:

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💥Is Wyoming F*cked? (Short Chesapeake Energy Corp.)💥

Governor Mark Gordon released his Wyoming State Budget for 2021-2022 earlier this week and — whoa boy — he cuts right to the chase:

It is a budget intended to prepare our state to meet the coming storm head-on.

For most of the last century, Wyoming’s abundant coal, natural gas, oil, and other minerals have been the drivers of our economy; employing thousands; funding schools and government services; and stabilizing our state’s communities. Energy development, minerals, and the sovereign wealth they have bequeathed to our children have kept taxes low for citizens. But times are changing. Over the past few years we have witnessed an upheaval in the way energy is being generated, used, and developed. These changes seem to be accelerating and are not generally favorable to some of our most cherished industries. (emphasis added)

He then goes on to highlight some pretty hefty headwinds (pun intended) — things that should be no surprise to a restructuring community that has watched coal company after another file for chapter 11 bankruptcy:

• Coal production in Wyoming has declined by 35%.

• Natural gas companies are halting drilling there.

• 38 states have established renewable and carbon-free standards which hurts demand.

• Wyoming has an oil and gas energy but low oil prices will offset whatever hedge this provides against declining coal.

"Even if we get out of this current downturn with oil bailing us out, the economy becomes more and more dependent on oil, which is the most volatile of all of the commodities and the one that we are least confident with forecasting into the future," said Robert Godby, director of the University of Wyoming Center for Energy Economics and Public Policy.

To point, Chesapeake Energy Corp. ($CHK), a large presence in Wyoming, issued a going concern warning earlier this month:

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💩Acosta = Not a Good Look, Carlyle💩

Disruption Flummoxes Carlyle. Destroys Billions of Value.

Back in September 2018’s “Trickle-Down Disruption from Retail Malaise (Short Coupons),” we noted a troubled trio of “sales and marketing agencies.” We wrote:

With the “perfect storm” … of (i) food delivery, (ii) the rise of direct-to-consumer CPG brands, (iii) increased competition from private-brand focused German infiltrators Aldi and Lidl, and (iv) the increasingly app-powered WholeFoods, there are a breed of companies that are feeling the aftershocks. Known as “sales and marketing agencies” (“SMAs”), you’d generally have zero clue about them but for the fact that you probably know someone who is addicted to coupon clipping. Or you’re addicted to coupon clipping. No shame in that, broheim. Anyway, that’s what they’re known for: coupons (we’re over-simplifying: they each perform other marketing, retailing, and data-oriented services too). The only other way you’d be familiar is if you have a private equity buddy who is sweating buckets right now, having underwritten an investment in one of three companies that are currently in distress. Enter Crossmark Holdings Inc., Acosta Inc., and Catalina Marketing (a unit of Checkout Holding Corp.). All three are in trouble.

What’s happened since?

• Catalina Marketing filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. ✅

• Crossmark Holdings Inc. effectuated an out-of-court exchange transaction, narrowing averting a chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. ✅

• And, as of last week, Acosta Inc. launched solicitation of a prepackaged chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. It will be in bankruptcy in the District of Delaware very very soon. We’ve basically got ourselves an SMA hat-trick. ✅💥

Before we dive into what the bloody hell happened here — and it ain’t pretty — let’s first put some more meat on those SMA bones. In doing so, mea culpa: we WAY over-simplified what Acosta Inc. does in that prior piece. So, what do they do?

Acosta has two main business lines: “Sales Services” and “Marketing Services.” In the former, “Acosta assists CPG companies in selling new and existing products to retailers, providing business insights, securing optimal shelf placement, executing promotion programs, and managing back-office order-to-cash and claims deduction management solutions. Acosta also works with clients in negotiations with retailers and managing promotional events.” They also provide store-level merchandising services to make sure sh*t is properly placed on shelves, stocks are right, displays executed, etc. The is segment creates 80% of Acosta’s revenue.

The other 20% comes from the Marketing Services segment. In this segment, “Acosta provides four primary Marketing Services offerings: (i) experiential marketing; (ii) assisted selling and training; (iii) content marketing; and (iv) shopper marketing. Acosta offers clients event-based marketing services such as brand launch events, pop-up retail experiences, mobile tours, large events, and trial/demo campaigns. Acosta also provides Marketing Services such as assisted selling, staffing, associate training, in-store demonstrations, and more. Under its shopping marketing business, Acosta advises clients on consumer promotions, package designs, digital shopping, and other shopper marketing channels.”

In the past, the company made money through commission-based contracts; they are now shifting “towards higher margin revenue generation models that allow the Company to focus on aligning cost-to-serve with revenue generation to better serve clients and maximize growth.” Whatever the f*ck that means.

We’re being flip because, well, let’s face it: this company hasn’t exactly gotten much right over the last four years so we ought to be forgiven for expressing a glint of skepticism that they’ve now suddenly got it all figured out. Indeed, The Carlyle Group LP acquired the company in 2014 for a staggering $4.75b — a transaction that “ranked … among the largest private-equity purchases of that year.” Score for Thomas H. Lee Partners LP(which acquired the company in 2011 from AEA Investors LP for $2b)!! This was after the Washington DC-based private equity firm reportedly lost out on its bid to acquire Advantage Sales & Marketing, a competitor which just goes to show the fervor with which Carlyle pursued entry into this business. Now they must surely regret it. Likewise, the company: nearly all of the company’s $3b of debt stems from that transaction. The company’s bankruptcy papers make no reference to management fees paid or dividends extracted so it’s difficult to tell whether Carlyle got any bang whatsoever for their equity buck.*

Suffice it to say, this isn’t exactly a raging success story for private equity (calling Elizabeth Warren!). Indeed, since 2015 — almost immediately after the acquisition — the company has lost $631mm of revenue and $193mm of EBITDA. It gets worse. Per the company:

“Revenue contributions from the top twenty-five clients in 2015 have declined at approximately 14.6 percent per year since fiscal year 2015. Furthermore, adjusted EBITDA margins have decreased year-over-year since fiscal year 2015 from over 19 percent to approximately 16 percent as of the end of fiscal year 2018.”

When you’re losing this money, it’s awfully hard to service $3b of debt. Not to state the obvious. But why did the company’s business deteriorate so quickly? Disruption, baby. Disruption. Per the company:

Acosta’s performance was disrupted by changes in consumer behavior and other macroeconomic trends in the retail and CPG industries that had a significant impact on the Company’s ability to generate revenue. Specifically, consumers have shifted away from traditional grocery retailers where Acosta has had a leadership position to discounters, convenience stores, online channels, and organic-focused grocers, where Acosta has not historically focused.

Just like we said a year ago. Let’s call this “The Aldi/Lidl/Amazon/Dollar Tree Effect.” Other trends have also taken hold: (a) people are eating healthier, shying away from center-store (where all the Campbell’s, Kellogg’s, KraftHeinz and Nestle stuff is — by the way, those are, or in the case of KraftHeinz, were, all major clients!); and (b) the rise of private label.

Moreover, according to Acosta, consumer purchasing has declined overall due to the increased cost of food (huh? uh, sure okay). The company adds:

These consumer trends have exposed CPG manufacturers to significant margin pressure, resulting in a reduction in outsourced sales and marketing spend. In the years and months leading to the Petition Date, several of Acosta’s major clients consolidated, downsized, or otherwise reduced their marketing budgets.

By way of example, here is Kraft Heinz’ marketing spend over the last several years:

Compounding matters, competition in the space is apparently rather savage:

“Acosta also faced significant pressure as a result of the Company’s heavy debt load. Clients have sought to diversify their SMA providers to decrease perceived risk of Acosta vulnerability. In fact, certain of Acosta’s competitors have pointed to the Company’s significant indebtedness, contrasting their own de-levered balance sheets, to entice clients away from Acosta. Over time, these factors have tightened the Company’s liquidity position and constrained the Company from making necessary operational and capital expenditures, further impacting revenue.”

So, obviously, Acosta needed to do something about that mountain of debt. And do something it did: it’s piling it up like The Joker, pouring kerosene on it, and lighting that sh*t on fire. The company will wipe out the first lien credit facility AND the unsecured notes — nearly $2.8b of debt POOF! GONE! What an epic example of disruption and value destruction!

So now what? Well, the debtors clearly cannot reverse the trends confronting CPG companies and, by extension, their business. But they can sure as hell napalm their balance sheet! The plan would provide for the following:

• Provide $150mm new money DIP provided by Elliott, DK, Oaktree and Nexus to satisfy the A/R facility, fund the cases, and presumably roll into an exit facility;

• First lien lenders will get 85% of the new common stock (subject to dilution from employee incentive plan, the equity rights offering, the direct investment preferred equity raise, etc.) + first lien subscription rights OR cash subject to a cap.

• Senior Notes will get 15% of new common stock + senior notes subscription rights OR cash subject to a cap.

• They’ll be $250mm in new equity infusions.

So, in total, over $2b — TWO BILLION — of debt will be eliminated and swapped for equity in the reorganized company. The listed recoveries (which, we must point out, are based on projections of enterprise value) are 22-24% for the holders of first lien paper and 10-11% for the holders of senior notes.

We previously wrote about how direct lenders — FS KKR Capital Corp. ($FSK), for instance — are all up in Acosta’s loans. Here’s what KKR had to say about their piece of the first lien loan:

We placed Acosta on nonaccrual due to ongoing restructuring negotiations during the quarter and chose to exit this position after the quarter end at a gain to our third quarter mark.

This was the mark back in December 2018 = $2.4mm fair value:

And this is the mark as of Q3 close, September 2019 = $1.3mm fair value:

Soooooo….HAHAHAHA. Now THAT is some top-notch spin! Even if they did mark to a gain versus the Q3 mark, they undoubtedly lost money on this position: the mark was cut in half in less than a year.

You have to take the benefits of quarterly reporting where you can, we suppose. 😬😜

*There have been two independent directors appointed to the board; they have their own counsel; and they’re performing an investigation into whether “any matter arising in or related to a restructuring transaction constituted a conflict matter.” There is no implication, however, that this investigation has anything to do with potential fraudulent conveyance claims. Not everything is Payless, people.

💰One’s Pain is Another’s Gain (Long Real Estate Consultants)💰

Yeah but someone is making money from all of this doom and gloom, right? You bet your a$$. The real estate consultants/advisors!! Using Houlihan’s for illustration purposes, let’s dive into what these guys do. 

Before we do, let’s establish some ground rules: we’re going to MASSIVELY over-simplify how this works just to extract some number out of the abstract figures and give folks some semblance of an idea of how this works. So, please spare us the righteous indignation about incomplete calculations, okay?  

In the Houlihan’s bankruptcy case, the debtors seek to engage Hilco Real Estate LLC as its real estate consultant and advisor. For the uninitiated, Hilco Real Estate counts countless bankrupted companies as clients, e.g., A&P, Fred’s, Gander Mountain, Furniture Brands, Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp., hhgregg, Hostess Brands, Ignite Restaurant Group, Logan’s Roadhouse, Payless Shoesource. You get the idea. Perversely, these guys kill it when you don’t (spare us the spin, y’all).

According to the agreement between Houlihan’s and Hilco, Hilco will, among other things, (a) meet with Houlihan’s to ascertain its goals, objectives and financial parameters (read: wherewithal); (b) mutually agree with Houlihan’s on a strategic plan for restructuring, assigning or terminating leases; (c) negotiate with third parties landlords in furtherance of the agreed-upon strategy; (d) provide updates on progress; and (e) assist Houlihan’s in closing the relevant lease restructuring, assignment, and termination agreements. The contract is exclusive. Said another way, Houlihan’s has agreed to convey over to Hilco all responsibility for negotiating with landlords for purposes of extracting concessions. 

Of course, Hilco doesn’t do this sh*t for free. They have a variety of ways to make money. 

First, it’s important to note that the Bankruptcy Code requires that debtors decide what to do with non-residential real property leases within 120 days from any filing. Consequently, many distressed companies engage real estate consultants long in advance of bankruptcy to get a handle on the real estate portfolio, help devise a strategy, and kickoff negotiations with landlords. Accordingly, any assigned or terminated lease pre-petition is eligible for 6% of Lease Savings (back to this in a minute). If a lease is modified rather than terminated, Hilco gets a flat fee of $1,500 + 5.25% of the savings. Post-petition, Hilco gets 6% for assignments/terminations/sales of leases — if there are any at that point that return cash value. 

Houlihan’s is a sale case so what happens if the leases are assumed and assigned pursuant to a sale of all or substantially all of the assets? Per the Agreement, 

“…any Lease that is assigned or sold to a purchaser of all or substantially all of the Company's or a division of the Company's assets shall not, in and of itself, be considered an Assigned/Sold Lease (but may still be a Restructured Lease).” 

Wait, what? The agreement doesn’t even define what an “Assigned/Sold Lease” is? But, it appears the intent of this language is to carve out leases that simply transfer to a buyer. No fee for Hilco there — that is, unless there is an agreed modification to the lease prior to assumption and assignment. (Note to Hilco: tighten up your sh*t). This makes sense. 

Of course, all of this might as well be written in Dothraki: 

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👟The Latest in Fitness Trends (Long Innovation)👟

There are a lot of venture investors operating under the hypothesis that audio is the next frontier in wearables and that the Apple AirPods were just the opening salvo. Amazon Inc. ($AMZN) is apparently working on pods that double-up as fitness trackers. This is a space worth watching.

Elsewhere in fitness, we’re writing this particular section midweek and yet we literally just walked by someone rocking his NYC Marathon medal. Seems a bit aggressive to still be wearing that thing 72 hours post-race but, whatevs. To each his own. 

Here’s a piece from Reess Kennedy about fitness and marketing, discussing the rise of the Nike Vaporfly 4%, a running shoe that Nike Inc. ($NKE) alleges will enhance performance by…wait for it…4%. Regarding the NYC marathon, he writes, “I’d safely wager that 70% of the men and women running under 3:10 were wearing it.” He adds:

“…Sunday all I was thinking was, “Why and how did Nike win so hard here?! They’ve gobbled up significant market share and achieved one of the most successful product adoption feats in the history of footwear—possibly in the history of product adoption!—and, at $250, they’ve also set a new off-the-chart, ‘luxury’ price point for racing shoes in the process!’”

He concludes that much of the adoption is attributable to FOMO: if your competitors are juicing with the Vaporfly, you should be juicing too.  He writes:

“I think the far more powerful demand ignitor was actually the brazen insertion of a precise performance gain right into the name of the actual product: The Vaporfly 4%.”

“For the first time in history, a shoe company is making a clear ROI claim to buyers. This is the real reason they’ve sold so many.”

“Many runners really struggle over many marathon attempts to break three hours—often, tragically, missing it by only a few minutes on each attempt. A 4% improvement for these folks hovering around three hours would mean about a seven-minute gain! If you’re on the edge of a lifetime goal is it worth it to pay $250 to achieve it? Yeah, probably. “

This begs the obvious question: how long until the release of the “Brooks Boss 6%,” the “Adidas A$$-kicker 7%” or the “Saucony Supersonic 9%”? Will we start seeing distressed players engage in marketing schemes like this to drive traffic? Should we?*

Why aren’t restructuring firms using this tactic? 

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💰How Are the Investment Banks Doing?💰

Greenhill & Co. Inc. ($GHL) reported Q3 earnings earlier his week and, well, they weren’t great. The company had $87mm of revenue for the quarter (flat YOY) and $194.3mm in revenue year-to-date. The latter is down 26% on the back of a poor first half. 

Why the poor performance? The company largely blamed “a very low level of activity in European M&A.” It then asked the analyst community to deploy some Pym Particles and take a time travel trip back to rosier times: 2016-2018. The company’s earnings presentation listed (a) fee paying clients and (b) $1mm+ clients for each of those years but, curiously, did not disclose those numbers for 2019.

Despite the lack of transparency, the firm is nevertheless “[s]till expecting solid full year revenue performance,” particularly with its capital advisory business. Curious how that works. 🤔

As for restructuring, the firm touted its expanded team and noted….

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💰What’s New in Marketing Trends (Long Facebook Inc. ($FB))💰

We’ve often highlighted how distressed retailers may be in for a rude awakening if they think deploying influencer-based social marketing on platforms like Facebook Inc. ($FB) and others will be the cure-all to their woes. And be easy. It won’t be and it’s not. The campaigns require significant expertise to execute and the cost of such campaigns has been on the rise. Until recently, it seems. In Facebook’s recent earnings call, CFO Dave Wehner said: 

“In Q3, the number of ad impressions served across our services increased 37% and the average price per ad decreased 6%. Impression growth was primarily driven by ads on Facebook News Feed, Instagram Stories and Instagram feed.”

Surprisingly, Facebook appears to be driving a large part of that impressions growth rather than Instagram Stories and the Instagram Feed. This means ads are reaching more people on the platform and, yet, the average price of ads decreased. While it’s not clear from the company’s SEC filings nor its earnings call why this is the case, this is a potential positive for retailers looking to deploy social ads. 

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🔥David's Bridal = Chapter 11.5🔥

One year, three different capital structures and two restructurings — one in-court and one out-of-court. This has been a hell of a twelve-month stretch for David’s Bridal Inc. Clearly performance continues to sh*t the bed.

A year ago at this time the company was pre-bankruptcy. It had 311 stores, 9,260 employees and a $775mm capital structure split among (i) approximately $25.7 million in drawn commitments under its Prepetition ABL Agreement; (ii) an estimated $481.2 million in outstanding principal obligations under its Prepetition Term Loan Agreement; and (iii) an estimated $270.0 million in outstanding principal obligations under its unsecured notes. It filed a prepackaged bankruptcy on November 19, 2018. It confirmed its plan of reorganization in early January and the plan went effective almost 60 days after the filing.*

Under the plan of reorganization, the company shed hundreds of millions of debt, wiping out its private equity overlord, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, LLC (except to the extent they owned unsecured notes). The company emerged from bankruptcy with (i) a $125mm asset-backed loan from Bank of America NA (the “ABL”), (ii) a $60mm “Priority” term loan agented by Cantor Fitzgerald and (iii) $240mm L+800bps “Takeback” term loan paper (also Cantor Fitzgerald). The term lenders — including, Oaktree CLO Ltd., a collateralized loan obligation structure managed by Oaktree Capital Group** — walked away as owners with, among other things, the takeback paper and the common stock in the reorganized entity. The unsecured noteholders received a pinch of common equity and warrants. The initial post-reorg board was reconstituted to include a representative from Oaktree, a former executive from Ralph Lauren, a former banker, a senior partner from Boston Consulting Group, and a venture capitalist with experience in the early stage consumer products space.

It didn’t take long for cracks to form. In May, S&P Global Ratings downgraded David’s Bridal’s credit rating into junk territory; it noted that the company’s performance "remained significantly weaker than anticipated after emergence from bankruptcy" and it “expect[s] poor customer traffic will pressure operating performance and lead to added volatility.” The ratings agency gave both term loans the “Scarlet D” for downgrade, noting that the capital structure was “potentially unsustainable based on its rapidly weakening operating performance, which makes it vulnerable to unfavorable business and financial conditions to meet its commitments in the long term.” The term loan quoted downward. The rating proved to be prescient.

Six months later and eleven months post-confirmation, it is clear that the balance sheet was NOT right-sized to the performance of the business. On Monday, the company announced that it obtained a new $55mm equity infusion from its existing lenders. Lenders unanimously exchanged “$276mm of its existing term loans into new preferred and common equity securities” leaving the company with $75mm of funded debt exclusive of the untapped $125mm ABL. The equity that CD&R and the other unsecured noteholders received are clearly worth bupkis today. Those warrants? HAHAHA. Wildly out-of-the-money. Peace out CD&R!

The question is why did this situation flame out so quickly? On a macro level, there are secular changes taking precedence in the marriage space: things just aren’t as formal as they used to be. On a micro level, clearly the company continues to suffer from operational challenges that were not addressed during the filing. Nor post-emergence. Per Bloomberg:

David’s lost its way with customers under prior management, Marcum said in the interview. When the company launched its online marketplace, it was a separate e-commerce profit that had different pricing and marketing promotions than the stores. “Consumers today are very smart and they see that,” [CEO James] Marcum said. “It caused a lot of friction” and an “extremely poor experience” for customers.

Ummm, okay, but wasn’t that supposed to have been fixed by now??

The company underestimated the negative impact that Chapter 11 would have going into its strongest selling period, and the competition “took advantage of it,” Marcum said.

Clearly the lenders underestimated the impact, too. How else do you explain the thinking around 10+% paper?

Given that the paper steadily quoted down for months leading up to this transaction, it’s obvious that (i) brides-to-be were steering clear from David’s Bridal after seeing media clips about other brides getting burned by bankrupted dress sellers, (ii) consequently, the lenders saw a constant stream of declining numbers, and (iii) as they learned more about the state of the business, lenders scrambled to try and dump this turd before a wipeout transpired. Spoiler alert: it has transpired.

As for the capital structure, clearly this thing came out of bankruptcy over-levered: it looks like the take-back paper was driven, in part, by CLOs in the capital structure. Callback to just a few weeks ago when, in “💥CLO NO!?!?💥,” we wrote (paywall):

…most CLO fund documents also don’t permit CLOs to take on new equity in restructurings. This limitation, by default, pushes CLOs towards “take-back paper” (read: new debt) in lieu of equity. If you’re a regular-way lender on an ad hoc group full of CLOs, then, this makes for an interesting dynamic: you may prefer — and have the latitude — to (i) swap debt for equity, thereby taking turns of leverage off to right-size the reorganized debtor’s balance sheet and (ii) give the reorganized entity a fighting chance to survive and drive equity returns. Your CLO counterparts, however, have different motives: they’ll push for more leverage. This misaligned incentive can sometimes get so bad that ad hoc groups will have to negotiate amongst themselves the go-forward capital structure without even getting management input. In this scenario, management projections are besides the point. If you’re looking for some explanation as to why there appears to be a rise in Chapter 22 filings, well, this might be one.

Not everything will have to file for bankruptcy a second time. But, as a practical matter, the result is the same here in terms of a capital structure refresh. Call this a Chapter 11.5.***

*Shockingly, the company didn’t boast of a “successful restructuring” like every other retailer-destined-for-a-chapter-22 tends to do. Perhaps retailers are now taking PETITION’s “Two-Year Rule” into account? 🤔😜

**The term lenders that made up the Ad Hoc Term Lender Group included a hodgepodge of private equity funds, hedge funds and CLOs.

***We really struggled with a witty thing to label a fact pattern where, within a year of bankruptcy, a company has to do a an out-of-court balance sheet refresh without going into a formal Chapter 22. Any ideas? Email us.

🤪Malls, Malls, Malls (Long Eccentric High-AF CEOs)🤪

Things continue to get worse for certain players in the mall REIT space.

Mall REIT Q3 earnings season begins with $WPG:
For Tier 1 enclosed malls: SS NOI -8.8% in Q3, occupancy down 330bp yoy, occupancy cost -90bp to 11.2% and TTM leasing spreads -7.6% (lower rents)
>>> Looking forward to Simon & CBL next week

— Catie McKee (@Catie1130) October 24, 2019

On October 24th, Washington Prime Group Inc. ($WPG) reported earnings and managed to surpass rock bottom expectations. The above-referenced net operating income decrease came from a $4.3mm “negative impact of cotenancy and rental income from 2018 anchor bankruptcies (Bon-Ton Stores, Sears, Toys R Us), and $2.1mm was attributable to 2019 bankruptcies (Charlotte Russe, Gymboree and Payless ShoeSource).” Occupancy decreased 1.1% to 92.9% during Q3 and the company lowered guidance (negative EPS).

S&P Ratings subsequently downgraded WPG from BB to BB- saying:

…despite slight sequential improvement, same-property NOI growth at tier 1 enclosed properties remained extremely negative, declining 8.8% with negative 7.6% releasing spreads over the past year, affected by co-tenancy clauses and additional bankruptcies/liquidations, with some expected redevelopment deliveries delayed. We believe overall metrics are modestly worse when factoring in the company's 14 remaining tier 2 and noncore malls, which we continue to include in our analysis of Washington Prime. Due to third-quarter results, management downwardly revised its publicly stated operating target for same-property NOI growth in 2019.

Washington Prime Group Inc.'s operating performance has continued to deteriorate such that we now view the company's business less favorably, with weaker cash flow, lower EBITDA margins, and diminishing prospects for stabilization in 2020.

Louis Conforti, WPG’s CEO, took to alt rock to explain the company’s negative performance, saying “[t]ake it from the Strokes, one of my all-time favorite bands, it's not hard to explain” before describing the effects of the #retailapocalypse on performance.

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🍴Declining Restaurant Trends Ripple Through (Short Dinnerware)🍴

There are a number of trends that are taking hold currently that may be disruptive to a company that manufactures and distributes glass tableware (i.e., shot glasses, tumblers, stemware, mugs, bowls, etc.) and ceramic dinnerware products (i.e., servicing utensils and trays) to food service distributors, mass merchants, department stores, retail distributors, houseware stores, breweries and other end users of glass container products. First, people don’t go to department stores or houseware stores anymore (in case you hadn’t heard, check out the stock performance of every department store in the US and, for good measure, Bed Bath & Beyond ($BBBY)). Second, millennials aren’t drinking as much as Generation Z did. Third, people are ordering food more frequently and cooking and hosting dinner parties far less often than they did prior to VC-subsidized companies like UberEats ($UBER), Postmates and Caviar coming along. Indeed, per the company’s most recent report:

In U.S. foodservice, restaurant traffic for Q3 as reported by Black Box was down 3.6% compared to down 1.3% in Q3 of 2018.

All of these things are headwinds to a company like Libbey Glass ($LBY), an Ohio-based company founded in 1888. The longevity of the business is uber-impressive, but the year is currently 2019, and sh*t is unforgiving out there: Libbey is starting to look a bit troubled.

The company reported Q2 numbers back in August and revenue was down across all segments: food service and retail. The company cited “intense global competition” and trade headwinds (in both Mexico and China) as major factors. Net sales were $206.2mm, down 3.5% YOY, and the company reported a net loss of $43.8mm in the quarter (primarily due to a non-cash impairment charge). Notably, business was particularly bad in EMEA: $5.5mm decline. It was the second straight quarter where the business performed poorly on a year-over-year basis.

On the August 1 earnings call, the company noted:

“We do…continue to see declines in U.S. & Canada foodservice traffic, as has been reported by third-party research firms Knapp-Track and Blackbox every quarter since 2012. Our U.S. & Canada foodservice channel is currently performing in-line with market trends. Management expects these trends, and the challenging environment experienced during 2018 and the first half of 2019, to continue for the remainder of the year.”

In particular, one disturbing trend is takeout and delivery:

While this channel continues to adapt to the new norm of takeout and delivery, we've seen our focus on new products and differentiated service begin to pay dividends. In addition to these ongoing efforts, we are adapting our approach and resource deployment to expand into growing and/or underpenetrated segments of the channel, like health care and hospitality. As previously mentioned, we also see a significant opportunity to leverage digital tools to reach end users and further support our distribution partners.

Sure, they did. And they certainly needed to: a quick look at their numbers shows that the second quarter is typically the business’ strongest. This didn’t portend well for Q3 performance.

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How Are the Investment Bankers Doing?

PJT Partners Inc. ($PJT) reported fiscal Q3 numbers yesterday and total revenue hit $174.2mm (up 24% YOY) — no thanks to the restructuring group. Per Mr. Paul Taubman, compared to last year, restructuring:

…revenues decreased meaningfully in the third quarter, but held almost even for the nine month period. Given the increase in distress within certain industries, such as energy, media, telecommunications, pharma, consumer retail, our outlook for the full-year has become a bit more positive and we now expect full-year restructuring revenues to be up slightly year-over-year. This activity level combined with restructurings increasing ability to leverage the expertise and connectivity of our Strategic Advisory bankers should result in a stronger backlog heading into 2020 versus a year ago. (emphasis added)

Wait. There’s distress in energy and consumer retail? Who knew. Anyway, this isn’t fake news but it isn’t really big news either: banker assignments close choppy which makes quarterly reporting for restructuring a tough game. Still, if you’re counting on a sizable year-end bonus, you probably don’t want the company CEO singling you out for being a drag on numbers — encouraging guidance notwithstanding.

⚡️Update: CBL & Associates Properties Inc.⚡️

In our recent newsletter, “🇺🇸Forever 21: Living the (American) Dream🇺🇸,” we highlighted the exposure that landlords have to Forever21:

The company currently spends $450mm in annual rent, spread across 12.2mm total square feet. The company will close 178 stores in the US and 350 in total.

We highlighted how the company noted the impact this plan will have on large mall landlords, the company said:

Forever 21’s management team and its advisors worked with its largest landlords to right size its geographic footprint. Four landlords hold almost 50 percent of its lease portfolio. To date, Forever 21 and its landlords have engaged in productive negotiations but have not yet reached a resolution.

Two of those landlords were the largest unsecured creditors, Simon Property Group ($SPG) and Brookfield Property Partners ($BPY). But another, CBL & Associates Properties Inc. ($CBL), also has exposure. In “Thanos Snaps, Retail Disappears,” we discussed CBL’s issues: bankruptcy-related store closures are something that CBL is very familiar with. Management said last February that things were going to turn around but, instead, things just keep getting worse as more and more retailers go out of business.

Forever 21 is one of CBL’s top tenants, occupying 19 stores (plus 1 store in “redevelopment phase”). Per CBL’s FY 2018 10-K, Forever 21 accounts for roughly 1.2% of CBL’s revenue or $10 million.

Of those 20 stores, 7 are subsumed by a motion by Forever 21 to enter into a consulting agreement to close stores (see bankruptcy docket (#81 Exhibit A):

On October 14, 2019, partly due Forever 21’s bankruptcy, Moody’s downgraded CBL’s corporate family rating to B2 from Baa3 and revised its outlook to negative. Moody’s explained:

CBL's cushion on its bond covenant compliance is modest, particularly the debt service test, which requires consolidated income to debt service to annual debt service charge to be greater than 1.50x. The ratio has declined from 2.46x at year-end 2018 to 2.27x at Q1 2019, and 2.25x at Q2 2019 due principally to declining operating income during these periods. CBL's same-center NOI growth was -5.3% for Q2 2019 YTD and CBL projected same-center NOI growth to be between -7.75% and -6.25% for 2019, which means that the debt service test will likely weaken further.

The chart below reflects the company’s capital structure and debt prices. It is not doing well. In fact, the term loan and the unsecured notes have priced down considerably since March:

Here is the company's stock performance:

The last thing CBL needed — on the heals of the downgrade — was near-instantaneous bad news. It got it this week.

Yesterday, the bankruptcy court granted interim approval authorizing Destination Maternity Corporation ($DEST) to assume a consulting agreement with Gordon Brothers Retail Partners LLC. Gordon Brothers will be tasked with multiple phases of store closures. Among those implicated? CBL, of course:

CBL is landlord to DEST on 16 properties that are slated for rejection. Considering that DEST cops to being party to above-market leases, this ought to result in a real economic hit to CBL as (a) it will lose a high-paying tenant, (b) it will take time to replace those boxes, and (c) it is highly unlikely to obtain tenants at as favorable rents.

Let’s pour one out for CBL, folks. The hits just keep on coming.

🤪Lending, Lending, Lending🤪

The ranks of US "Weakest Links" - issuers rated B- and below with negative outlook - is as high now as anytime since 2009. Why might that matter? The default rate on Weakest Links is 8x the broader #highyield universe https://t.co/XitgKf6o03 pic.twitter.com/SrSrvEWBsV

— Leveraged Loans (@lcdnews) October 22, 2019

Sunday’s looooooong special report, “CLO NO!?!?,” about Deluxe Entertainment, collateralized loan obligations (and their limitations), leveraged lending, EBITDA add-backs and other fun lending stuff sparked A LOT of interest. If you’re not a Member, you missed out and now thousands of people you’re competing with for business are officially smarter than you. Go you!

One thing we didn’t have time (or, given the length, space) to note is how private credit lenders take exception to being lumped in with the syndicated leveraged loan market and, by extension, CLOs. Indeed, “leveraged loans” are a rather broad category and there are differences between lenders that ought to be acknowledged: private credit vs. public BDCs vs. private BDCs vs. syndicating banks, etc., etc.

Regardless of distinctions, however, there’s clearly a ton of green out there looking for some action. To point, back in September, Bloomberg noted:

Globally, private credit, which includes distressed debt and venture financing, has ballooned from $42.4 billion in 2000 to $776.9 billion in 2018. By one estimate, the total is likely to top $1 trillion in 2020.

Public pension funds, insurance companies and family offices are some of the biggest investors putting money to work in private credit. Private equity firms themselves have also flooded into the space, forming their own credit arms or raising cash for private credit vehicles, along with private equity funds of funds from these investors. The frenzy has turned some lending start ups into heavyweights almost overnight. Owl Rock Capital Partners — a New York firm founded by Blackstone, KKR and Goldman Sachs veterans — has amassed $13.4 billion of assets since it started in 2016.

Bloomberg continued:

An influx of new lenders and fresh cash in the space has contributed to cutthroat competition and looser covenants -- terms lenders impose on borrowers to help protect their investments -- in addition to thinner returns. Regulators in Europe have taken note of private credit’s boom, saying its growth has been accompanied by signs of increased risk-taking. UBS credit strategists have called private credit “ground zero” for concerns due to the increased leverage on direct loans. Covenants can also be undermined when borrowers goose their earnings by, for instance, claiming savings from ambitious cost-cutting programs that may never come to pass. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, has also said some non-bank lenders may not survive an economic slump because they’re holding lower-quality loans -- and their disappearance could leave some borrowers “stranded.”

Hmmm. It sure sounds like the aforementioned distinctions may be without a difference given the market dynamics.

In response, the private credit guys — and, yes, they’re overwhelmingly dudes — love to say that they’re not necessarily overrun by the supply/demand imbalance that generally exists elsewhere in credit. “We have proprietary credit analysis techniques,” they’ll say, thumping their vested chests in the process. “We have specialization in category XYZ,” they’ll argue in an attempt to de-commoditize themselves. Boasts notwithstanding, any actual or alleged competitive differentiation hasn’t, in fact, insulated most lenders from macro market trends where sponsors have the power and lenders capitulate on the regular. No doubt, private equity sponsors are playing competing BDCs and private credit providers against one another to get deals done with favorable terms. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be reading about EBITDA add-backs, and cov-lite or cov-loose, etc.

Still, they’re combative. “Credit quality is more important than documentation,” they’ll say, highlighting how they loan with the intent to satisfy the life cycle of the paper rather than dole it out or ditch it. Management. Industry. Financials. No cyclicality. The documentation is less relevant when these things line up, they’ll say. Do that right and they won’t have to worry about what happens when the thing goes sideways. Counterpoint: restructurings wouldn’t exist if underwriting was 100% bullet-proof.🤔 

Alternatively they’ll deploy the Trump defense. “Sure, sure, our docs suck. But the worst private credit doc is better than the best syndicated loan doc.” Or they’ll argue that they’re able to get favorable pricing in exchange for the lax nature of the docs. Maybe. We suppose we’ll also see in due time if that pricing properly compensates lenders for the risks they’re taking.

Look, we get that the type of loans that now constitute “private credit” fared relatively well in the last cycle. We also understand priority and acknowledge that top-of-the-capital-structure loans ought to be, from a recovery perspective, fine places to play. But to cavalierly play it like there isn’t reason for concern is disingenuous.

Apropos, Golub Capital just hired new Workout Counsel. He — and his ilk — may be busier than these private credit lenders care to admit.

💥CLO NO!?!?💥

On October 3rd, Deluxe Entertainment Services Group Inc., a content creation-to-distribution video services company (whatever the hell that means), filed a prepackaged bankruptcy case in the Southern District of New York. The purpose? To address the company’s over-levered capital structure ⬇️.

That’s right, even “content creation-to-distribution video services” companies have no trouble loading up over $1b of debt.

Gotta love these markets. Anyway, it’s not the capital structure itself that’s interesting here. Rather, it’s the parties playing in that capital structure.

In its bankruptcy papers, the company took pains to note that it thought it would get an out-of-court deal done. In July, it secured a loan — the $73mm “Priming Term Loan” above — to enhance liquidity and bridge the company to a transaction that would substantially reduce its debt obligations by equitizing the “Existing Term Loans.” Shortly thereafter, as all parties were working towards consummating the transaction, it became apparent to all that the company would need $25mm in incremental liquidity. While this is curious from a 13-week cash flow management perspective (), this shouldn’t have been a show stopper.

But then the ratings agencies had to go and screw everything up.

On August 5th, S&P Global Ratings downgraded the company’s debt three notches into junk territory to CCC- from B-. Per the Wall Street Journal:

S&P primary credit analyst Dylan Singh said the ratings were lowered because Deluxe has faced challenges in refinancing its debt structure, a problem that could increase the likelihood of a default.

Although the new $73 million loan will give additional liquidity to Deluxe, Mr. Singh said he doesn’t expect the company to be able to repay its ABL facility when it comes due in November and believes the business will try to extend the maturity before then. The current capital structure is unsustainable, he said.

Crossing over to the CCC threshold is a big problem for a lot of lenders — specifically, CLOs. For the uninitiated, here is a decent CLO primer about what CLOs are and how they work. For purposes of this briefing, it’s important to note that most CLOs are forbidden by their foundational fund docs from holding an allocation of more than 7.5% of their portfolio in CCC-or-lower-rated debt. This effectively handcuffed most of the CLOs in Deluxe’s capital structure from providing the necessary new money.

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🎢Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee🎢

⚡️Update: WeWork⚡️

This was us covering the hourly news diarrhea that came out about WeWork in the last 48 hours alone:

Which, we suppose, is better than how the company’s equity and existing noteholders must be managing:

Or the fine bankers over at JPMorgan Chase ($JPM) who are tasked with finding capital markets suckers…uh…investors…who’d be so kind as extend this steaming pile a lifeline:

So, sifting through the constant headlines, where are we at?

At most, WeWork has the capacity to issue a little more than $1 billion in secured debt and $2.56 billion of unsecured debt: @XtractResearch This is substantially less than some of the estimates floating out there regarding potential loan commitments.

— Lisa Abramowicz (@lisaabramowicz1) October 14, 2019

Okay, right. The hot mess of a liquidity profile and limited amount of debt capacity to get a deal done.  Nothing to see here. All good.

Reminder: it is widely believed that WeWork will run out of cash by the end of the year without a new deal in place. Axios reports:

The company reported $2.4 billion of cash at the end of June, with a first-half net loss of $904 million. At that pace, it should have been able to survive at least through the middle of 2020. But I'm told that it significantly increased spend in Q3, partially due to the lumpy nature of real estate cap-ex, believing it would be absorbed by $9 billion in proceeds from the IPO and concurrent debt deal. One source says that there's probably enough money to get through Thanksgiving, but not to Christmas.

Riiiiiight. So here are the options:

• A Softbank Group new equity and debt bailout pursuant to which they get control of WeWork and napalm Masa’s former boy, Adam Neumann, in the process. This would reportedly be an aggregate $3b package “to get through the next year” — repeat, TO GET THROUGH THE NEXT YEAR — with the equity component coming significantly cheaper than the previous self-imposed $47b valuation (at a $10b valuation); or

• JPM arranges some hodge-podge debt package and tests the market’s never-ceasing thirst for yield, baby, yield. The early reports were that the financing package would be $3b, comprised of $1 billion of 9-11% secured debt, $2b of unsecured PIK notes yielding 15% (1/3 cash pay, 2/3 PIK), and letter of credit availability. Wait, 15%?! How does a company with no liquidity even pay that? That’s why the PIK component is so critical: it would simply add 2/3 of the interest due to the principal of the debt. Said another way, the debt would compound annually and creep past $2.5b in two years. Per Bloomberg, “The $2 billion of proposed unsecured debt may carry an additional sweetener for investors: equity warrants designed so that investors could boost their return to around 30% if the company gets to a $20 billion valuation, according to the person who described the structure.” Because debt won’t dilute equity like Softbank’s equity-heavy proposal would, WeWork insiders (read: Neumann) apparently prefer the JPM approach. Regardless of what insiders prefer, however, is whether the market will be receptive to what one investor dubbed, per Bloomberg, “substantial career risk.”

We’re old enough to remember when WeWork’s notes rebounded a mere five days ago for reasons that were wildly inexplicable to us then and even more so now.

So, to summarize, who are the big winners? IWG/Regus ($IWGFF)(long?). We’re pretty sure they’re loving what’s happening here; we have to imagine that the inbound calls have to be on the upswing. Also, the restructuring professionals. Whether you’re Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP (Softbank), Houlihan Lokey ($HLI)(Softbank), or Perella Weinberg Partners (WeWork’s Board of Directors), you’re incurring more billables/fees than you expected to mere days weeks ago. Somehow, some way, the restructuring pros always seem to come out ahead. And, finally, Goldman Sachs ($GS). Because there’s nothing more Goldman-y than them selling their prop stock right out from under a proposed IPO.

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⛓What We're Reading: Week of October 13, 2019 (5 Reads)⛓

1. Automation (Long Andrew Yang?). A new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco highlights the dangers of automation to the American worker:

The portion of national income that goes to workers, known as the labor share, has fallen substantially over the past 20 years. Even with strong employment growth in recent years, the labor share has remained at historically low levels. Automation has been an important driving factor. While it has increased labor productivity, the threat of automation has also weakened workers’ bargaining power in wage negotiations and led to stagnant wage growth. Analysis suggests that automation contributed substantially to the decline in the labor share.

2. Experiences (Long the “Data is the New Oil” Narrative). In response to “🎯Experiences Galore: Dave & Buster’s Complains of Cannibalization (Short Arcades)🎯,” one loyal PETITION reader sent us this piece, wherein Bloomberg describes how Steve Cohen’s Point72 analyzed geo-location data linked to (allegedly) anonymous credit card information to determine that there’s a direct negative correlation between Topgolf and Dave & Buster’s Entertainment Inc. ($PLAY). They noted “when customers went to entertainment venue Topgolf for the first time, their spending at a nearby Dave & Buster’s went down immediately….” The fund shorted PLAY as a result. Similarly, it used data to determine that alternative diets, i.e., Keto, were taking a bite out of Weight Watchers’ ($WW) business.

Topgolf, meanwhile, seems poised to IPO in 2020…maybe. We’ll see what the IPO markets are like in the wake of WeWork. Per Pitchbook, “[i]t’s unclear if the company is currently profitable.” 🤔

3. Malls (Long the “Over-Malled” Theme). This is a bit older, but here, Garrick Brown, Vice-President of Retail Intelligence at Cushman & Wakefield has some interesting numbers about malls:

I just finished crunching mall tenant sales per square foot data and the news may surprise some of you. Trophy malls (those with sales of $900 psf or more) currently average $1,257 psf. This has increased by 16.7% over the last three years. Class A malls ($600 - $900 psf) now average $714 psf and have increased 9.3% over the past three years. Class B malls ($300 - $600 psf) now average $402. This has fallen 1% since 2016. However if you exclude 18 centers that invested in significant upgrades the decline overall would have been -7.8%. Class C (-$300 psf) now average $213 and have seen a 13.7% decline over the past three years. Bifurcation is real. Strong getting stronger. Weak getting weaker. Quality wins.

Now, we would love to see how, even in the A malls, that average has changed over the last three years. We’d have to think that, even there, the trends are declining somewhat. Also, this was pre-Forever 21 filing for bankruptcy so the effects of that won’t flow through these numbers for some time.

4. Restaurants (Short Franchisees). Franchisee debt levels are starting to cause concern. Per Restaurant Business:

Franchise systems like McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Jack in the Box and many others have been selling corporate stores to franchisees, relying on operators to provide the capital needed to fund remodels and build new units.

Lenders have been eager to make loans to these operators. And franchise systems have taken advantage of this availability of capital to fuel remodel programs.

As a result, debt levels have soared for franchisees. In a note this week, Bernstein Research analyst Sara Senatore noted that the leverage ratio for McDonald’s franchisees grew to 3.1 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, in 2018. In 2008, that ratio was just 1.3.

For Wendy’s, that ratio is even worse: 7 times EBITDA, from 5.7 in 2008.

🤔

5. Retail Ad Budgets (Long Ingenuity). Are all of those retailers who are planning on spending more on social media and marketing going to get bang for their buck? This suggests there’s reason for skepticism. Given the decrease in mall foot traffic, retailers are increasingly getting stuck between a rock (e-commerce saturation, limited ad supply, questionable tracking metrics and performance) and a hard place (brick-and-mortar leases, environmentalism).

💨WeWork (Long Death Spirals & Cascading Effects)💨

The Co-Working Giant Spirals Amidst Liquidity Crunch Sparking Landlord and CMBS Worries

Our WeWork space currently has no running water. I knew WeWork had a liquidity problem, but this is ridiculous!!!!!!!!!!

— matt weinberger (@gamoid) October 7, 2019

Alison Griswold’s Oversharing newsletter has been all over the WeWork mess and this recent missive includes a solid and stunning collection of links-all-things-WeWork. Things could get even worse if a financing doesn’t get done. Like, soon. Per The Financial Times:

WeWork’s bankers are scrambling to complete a new debt financing package as soon as next week to buy time to restructure after the company’s failed initial public offering left it running short of cash at a faster rate than expected.

Two people briefed on the fundraising efforts said the office company’s cash crunch was so acute that it had to raise new financing no later than the end of November. Fitch Ratings downgraded WeWork’s credit rating last week to CCC+, warning that the lossmaking company’s liquidity position was “precarious”.

Fitch estimates WeWork’s current funding arrangements might only carry it through another four to eight quarters unless it rapidly reduced the rate at which it has been burning cash.

Interest payments are, of course, small potatoes relative to massive lease obligations but WeWork has $702mm of 7.875% unsecured notes with biannual interest payments. Its next payment is due 11/1/19. That would be a $27.9m nut. The timing couldn’t possibly be worse.

This barrage of bad news has the haters drooling:

In other words, nearly 10% of the outstanding unsecured bonds are short. Man, the vibe around this thing isn’t exactly Kibbutz-like.

If you wondered why WeWork $WE was still contemplating an IPO at a 2/3rds discount to the last round, now you know:

They're broke pic.twitter.com/K7be4LsKJ3

— Donut Shorts (@DonutShorts) October 11, 2019

Some other bits here: (i) JPMorgan Chase & Co. ($JPM) is trying to get other banks to participate in the “emergency financing package” but the-always-winning-to-the-point-of-the-game-seeming-rigged Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ($GS) is currently not in talks to participate, effectively walking away from an earlier IPO-based commitment to the company; and (ii) Softbank may sink more money into this pit but is renegotiating the price of its earlier issued shares in the process (read: this is leverage baby).

If you’re wondering why a senior lender might be hesitating to join JPM in a syndicated senior secured loan, the issue may very well be this: secured by what, exactly? In terms of assets, the company has roughly $15b in leases (which, obviously, have an offsetting liability, and the quality of which will be variable and in need of examination) and $7b of property and equipment, i.e., desks, chairs, barista equipment, yogababble, etc. Given all of the beer swilling and hooking up that occurs at these places, equipment has a questionable lifespan and, by extension, value.

Compounding matters is the fact that enterprise tenants — a key component to WeWork’s go-forward viability — appear to be balking. Per The Information:

“We were looking at doing a couple deals [with WeWork], and thinking about it quite differently now. Are they going to invest in the market?” said Robert Teed, vice president of real estate and workplace for ServiceNow, a publicly traded cloud computing company that puts some of its employees in WeWork spaces. “It’s making us stop and think. It’s awfully noisy. Will they do what they say they’re gonna do?”

And, so, people are beginning to fear what happens if…uh…as?…WeWork falls. Here is a Wall Street Journal article about the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s concerns about WeWork, co-working and CRE. It seems his concerns may not be misplaced: cracks are beginning to form in Boston’s commercial real estate market, generally. Here is a Financial Times piece about WeWork halting new lease agreements, a move that “will rattle commercial property owners across the globe who rented to WeWork, which often upgraded the spaces so the group could re-let the buildings to its own customers.” This change in pace will “cut[] out a significant source of demand in large urban property markets where it operates.” Landlords are battening down the hatches. Per Financial Times:

Two landlords of large WeWork sites in London, who asked not to be named, said they would not sign new leases for the foreseeable future and were making contingency plans for their existing WeWork offices in the event of a restructuring.

“It would not be prudent for us to do anything [new] with them until we see how the new management will operate,” one landlord said.

The magnitude of this cannot be overstated. WeWork accounts for over 7mm square feet of office space in New York City alone — making it the largest tenant in the Big Apple. Its $47b in lease obligations is well-documented — including $2.3b in obligations due in 2020 — but to put that in perspective, that figure puts WeWork in third in terms of lease commitments IN THE WORLD.

So, the first question is, “what happens to the existing money-losing properties if WeWork cannot sure up liquidity?”

Back to the FT:

Alex Snyder, assistant portfolio manager at CenterSquare Investment Management in Philadelphia, said: “WeWork has structured many of its leases so that they can simply collapse the special purpose entity it’s trapped in and walk away. This vacancy pressure on the market [would] be painful.”

This ⬆️ is a nuance that a lot of the media — quick to push a sensationalist bankruptcy narrative — seems to miss. The company is set up like a REIT with each individual property non-recourse to the parent. If properties fail, WeWork will just “mic drop” the keys and walk away, leaving landlords with large spaces to fill. What happens then is anyone’s guess. Another co-working space takes over? 🤔

Which gets us to the second question, “if WeWork is no longer expanding, who will fill CRE supply?” These charts ought to give you a sense of the magnitude of WeWork’s reach ⬇️. With this halting, landlords will need to start looking elsewhere.

To add an another layer to this, all of this has people concerned about CMBS exposure. Trepp recently issued a report on this issue. They conclude:

WeWork is certainly a growing exposure for the CMBS market; one that concerns people. The volume of WeWork loans in CMBS, post 2010, is approaching 1% of the entire CMBS market and about 4% of loans backed by offices, so that exposure is meaningful.

The biggest issue is not the pulling of the IPO per se, but the broader concerns about the firm’s viability. The worst-case scenario would be that the firm continues to burn through cash and can no longer support all of its lease obligations. If that were followed by a period of non-payment of rent by WeWork, but physical occupancy and current payments by the firm’s sub-lessees, that would make for some interesting work for landlords and special servicers. Stay tuned.

Wolf Richter — someone who has a reputation for alarmist takes — adds:

These “special servicers” may already be licking their chops. When a CMBS loan defaults, or sometimes even when the building loses a critical tenant but the loan hasn’t defaulted yet, servicing gets switched from the master servicer to a special servicer, as laid out in the pooling and servicing agreement (PSA). The special servicer’s role is to figure out if the borrower can become current via a loan modification or a debt workout. Under many PSAs, special servicers have the right to purchase the building at a discount if the very same special servicer decides the loan cannot be brought current. So, yeah — this might get interesting.

And there are additional complications. WeWork is so large in some markets that a reduction in leasing demand from WeWork, or an outright unwinding of its leases, would put downward pressure on rents and prices in those markets, making it that much more difficult to sort through the fallout in the market from problems at WeWork.

Stay tuned indeed.

*****

More on WeWork: here is a provocative thread about WeWork’s effect on the venture system and what its failure presages for other unicorns in growth-at-alls-costs-even-if-the-business-model-is-faulty mode; here is the WSJ and here is Bloomberg’s Matt Levine, respectively, discussing the personal loans to Adam Neumann; and here is a pointed must-read Harvard Business School study discussing the company’s business model. We particularly enjoyed this bit:

Fundamentally, WeWork engages in “rent arbitrage” by signing long term leases, generally 15 years, at one rate and subleasing the space to SMEs and Enterprise members at with shorter durations. While the cost per desk is lower for the member, the aggregate rent WeWork receives is higher for the space due to the density.

The practice obviously creates a duration mismatch which leaves WeWork, or the special purpose vehicle that entered into the lease, exposed to market fluctuations in the event of a downturn. The short duration of the subleases leaves WeWork exposed to the risk that tenants might abandon the space on short notice leaving WeWork liable for the master lease obligation. They are also exposed to the credit risk of the SME subleasees.

WeWork does not believe a market downturn will impair their business. To the contrary, WeWork maintains that as businesses contract, they will be attracted to WeWork’s business model as it will offer SMEs and larger Enterprises the needed flexibility and lower cost structure per employee during a recession. Indeed, Neumann highlights that the Company was founded during the Great Recession and attracted tenants. Time will only tell if this will be accurate, but it is worth noting that their main competitor, Regus, now IWG, went bankrupt during the Great Recession. (emphasis added)

BURN.

💊How's GNC Doing (Long Online Supplements, Short Fitness Stores)?💊

A quick recap of PETITION’s coverage of everyone’s (cough, no one’s) favorite supplements slinger.

In August 2017 in “GNC Holdings Inc. Needs Some Protein Powder,” we wrote:

GNC Holdings Inc. ($GNC) remains in focus as it reported its Q2 numbers this past Thursday. In summary, decreased consolidated revenue, decreased domestic (company-owned and franchised) same-store sales, decreased net income and operating income, decreased manufacturing/wholesale business...basically a hot mess. Limited bright spots included China sales and the new GNC storefront on Amazon. You read that right: the storefront on Amazon. Ugh. The company has $52mm of cash, $163.1mm available under its revolver and a robust $1.5b of long-term debt on its balance sheet. The stock traded down 7% after the announcement (but was up on the week).

In February 2018 in “GNC Makes Moves (Long Brand Equity, Meatheads & Chinese Cash),” we introduced the great strides GNC was undertaking to avoid a bankruptcy filing. These actions included (a) paying down its revolving credit facility, (b) moving towards an amend-and-extend transaction vis-a-vis its term loan, (c) obtaining a $300mm capital infusion by way of issuance of a perpetual preferred security to CITIC Capital, a Chinese investment fund and controlling shareholder of Harbin Pharmaceutical Group, and (d) the formation of a JV in China whereby it would slap its brand on Harbin’s product.

The following month in “GNC Holdings Inc. & the Rise of Supplements,” we highlighted that the amend-and-extend got done. And this:

Concurrently, the company entered into a new $100 million asset-backed loan due August 2022 and engaged in certain other capital structure machinations to obtain $275 million of asset-backed “first in, last out” term loans due December 2022. Textbook. Kicking. The. Can. Which, of course, helped the company avoid Vitamin World’s bankrupt fate.  Goldman Sachs!

We also noted a number of DTC supplements companies that were juiced by financings or acquisitions, citing them as headwinds to GNC and GNC’s nascent DTC business. The stock traded at $3.97/share back then. And we wrote:

Perhaps those restructuring professionals disappointed by Goldman Sachs’ success in securing the refinancing should just put that GNC file in a box labeled “2021.”

We revisited GNC in May 2018 in “GNC Holdings Inc. Isn’t Out of the Woods Yet.” At that time, the stock hovered around $3.53/share and the company reported more bad news including (i) 200 store closures, and (ii) declining revenue, same store sales at domestic franchise locations, and net income. We wrote:

Clearly GNC’s future — now that it has some balance sheet breathing room — will depend on its ability to capture new international markets, e-commerce growth primarily through its private label, innovation around product to combat DTC supplements brands, and continued cost controls. It will also need to execute on its goal of translating e-commerce sales to foot traffic. To accomplish this Herculean task, GNC may just need some supplements.

Last July, we noted that revenue continued its downward trend but earnings generally beat (uber-low) expectations. In August, we highlighted how Goldman Sachs was acting very “Goldman-y,” given that Goldman Sachs Investment Partners was a major investor in DTC vitamins and supplements startup Care/of, which had just raised a $29mm Series B round. We’ve slacked on our coverage since.

So, like, what’s up with GNC now?

It reported earnings back in July and continued to show weakness. Quarterly consolidated revenue and adjusted EBITDA declined meaningfully — the latter down 3% YOY. Same store sales were down 4.6%. E-commerce was down 0.2%. Revenue from franchise locations decreased 1.8%.

The company blamed promotional offers it implemented at the beginning of the quarter for the lousy same-store sales results.

Early in the second quarter, we made some adjustments to some of our promotional offers and our marketing vehicles, and we saw a direct negative impact to the top line. We quickly course corrected and saw sales strengthen throughout the remainder of the quarter.

PETITION Note: somebody must have gotten fired. Hard. Nothing like dropping an idea that is so horrifically bad that it immediately resulted in a “direct negative impact to the top line.” YIKES.

Speaking of yikes, mall performance is, like, YIIIIIIIIIIIKES:

In addition, the negative trends in traffic that we've seen in mall stores over the past several years has accelerated during the past few quarters putting additional pressure on comps. As part of our work to optimize our store footprint, we're increasing our focus on mall locations. And as you know, we have a great deal of flexibility to take further action here due to the short lease terms we have across our store portfolio.

It's important to note that our strip center locations are relatively stable from a comparable sales perspective. As a reminder, 61% of our existing store base is located in strip centers while only 28% reside in malls.

As a result of the current mall traffic trends, it's likely that we will end up closer to the top end of our original optimization estimate of 700 to 900 store closures.

Mall landlords everywhere were like:

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