visto che ormai è ch 11, alcuni "effetti collaterali": FIAT ringrazia, si prenderà solo il buono...
While much of Chrysler LLC's bankruptcy restructuring remains to be hammered out, the auto maker wasted no time seeking to cut ties to a handful of small U.S. property owners.
On the same day last month that the 84-year-old company filed for Chapter 11 protection,
Chrysler asked the court to allow it to reject 10 unexpired leases with a total of more than $30 million in rent remaining to be paid on them. The properties are mostly shuttered dealerships and some vacant land in California, Hawaii, Indiana, Louisiana, New York, Texas and Michigan.
The move couldn't have come at a worse time for the property owners. Weak demand for new cars has led to the closure of many dealerships across the U.S. For landlords, this has meant falling rents or, even worse, being left with vacant lots for which there aren't many other uses.
Chrysler, which is working to restructure itself by shrinking its dealer network and merging with Italian auto maker Fiat SpA, in general is believed to have leased few dealership properties on the corporate level. The leases it rejected were less desirable because most of them were vacant. They also were probably among the few such dealership leases on its books because dealers more typically own their own real estate, says James Mitchell, director of the national automotive group for Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services in Bethesda, Md.
In court documents, Chrysler said a review of its unexpired leases led the company to request the lease cancellations. "The debtors have determined the leases identified ... will not be assumed and assigned in the Fiat Transaction and are neither necessary nor valuable to their estates." A spokesman for Chrysler declined to comment further.
The news angered some landlords who said they will struggle to handle their financial obligations without Chrysler. Ronnie Lamarque, a 63-year-old New Orleans native who favors brightly colored ties in commercials for a New Orleans-area dealership that he still operates, says Chrysler had been negotiating to buy itself out of a lease that was to run through 2013 on a former dealership property in Metairie, La., just outside New Orleans.
Mr. Lamarque says he needs the $56,000 monthly rent to cover the property's $60,000 monthly mortgage and worries the cloud of bankruptcy will make it harder to find a new tenant willing to pay a reasonable rent. "Now people are just really going to be thinking this is a fire sale," says Mr. Lamarque, who notes that his bank called him Monday to notify him that Chrysler's $56,000 May rent check for property Mr. Lamarque owns in Metairie had bounced.
Moreover, the challenges some of the landlords may have replacing Chrysler's relatively rich rental stream soon will likely get even harder. Both
General Motors Corp. and Chrysler are expected to announce details on their plans to prune their dealership networks this week.
More closed dealerships also could spell trouble for major retail strips in many communities. Bernard Haddigan, managing director of national retail for Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services in Atlanta, says a string of retail bankruptcies outside the automotive industry has already sent store vacancies skyward.
In addition, Mr. Haddigan says car dealerships, though often well located, aren't easy to redevelop to another use like larger so-called big-box stores. New users would typically be looking to demolish and reuse dealership properties, an approach made difficult by the dry credit markets. "Most of these sites are going to languish," he says.
Marchus & Millichap estimates that there are roughly 20,000 car dealerships nationally and that thousands are likely to be vacated in the next 12 months. Values also have fallen sharply.
An average vacant dealership, which might be located on four acres with a 15,000-square-foot showroom, would fetch about $5 million, well below the $10 million an operating dealership might have sold for several years ago, Mr. Mitchell says.
Part of the struggle for some landlords was that Chrysler was paying more for empty space than other companies were willing to pay to occupy or buy it. Take the case of Frederick Nagher, who owns a former dealership site in the Dallas suburb of Mesquite, Texas, where Chrysler wants to cancel a lease. Chrysler is paying $35,000 a month in rent as well as the taxes on the property, Mr. Nagher says. The former dealership has been empty since 2003, in part because Mr. Nagher says he couldn't afford to sell to interested buyers that included a tractor dealership. "The lease was worth more than the building," Mr. Nagher says. "It was unlucky for me."
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