Retail Contrarians

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[00:02:43] – Outline the Real Estate Investment Trust world and what the assets and total value look like

[00:06:10] – What does the profile of investors in the space look like compared to investors in the broader debt markets

[00:09:43] – What are the characteristics of a liquid real estate portfolio that make them so attractive to investors

[00:10:54] – Looking at the history of Sorin Capital and how the business has evolved to where it is today

[00:12:35] – Understanding the idea of securitization of commercial mortgages

[00:17:01] – What really led to the formation of Sorin after working for Bear Stearns

[00:20:19] – Looking at the retail sector in real estate in the scope of actual trades that are being made

[00:25:08] – From an investing standpoint, how do you craft a portfolio that takes advantage of the real estate space as retail appears to be suffering on the surface

[00:30:09] – The different type of real estate investments in the retail sectors and what piece of the pie do they make up

[00:32:43] – How does the business model of the mall work and why is it so connected to the department stores

[00:34:08] – What is the future of malls itself with the big changes happening to the legacy stores that helped them proliferate

[00:37:44] – Why won’t the same thing that has happened to apparel stretched to all sectors of the retail industry

[00:39:09] – How do they search for inefficiencies in the market

[00:41:20] – One of the craziest things they saw on the road that outlined real-world craziness in real estate investment

[00:42:23] – What is the duration involved in these types of investments

[00:44:41] – How the portfolio is positioned across these different real estate types

[00:47:49] – Why haven’t others come in and taken advantage of the investments that Sorin is able to

[00:49:03] – Reaction to the idea that the growth of passive ETF’s and investing styles has lengthened the time over which certain inefficiencies would be corrected and are distorting things

[00:51:27] – How much does momentum play into their thinking

[00:54:19] – How evenly distributed are the vintages of these ten-year cycles

[00:57:15] – Explaining the idea of deep value bottom-up work in the real estate investment world that they have done a deep dive on

[00:59:31] – Best stories from boots on the ground visits

[01:04:04] – The origin story for the original Sorin partnership

[01:07:51] – What was it like for Tom getting started and the lessons he learned after an incredible hard time for the market

[01:09:24] – What was it like for Jim coming through the crisis

[01:11:18] – What is the trend for funds to craft investments specific to investors vs having them buying products that they produce

[01:18:29] – Are other hedge fund firms moving to a client demand or solutions-based model? Or are we still very early in the transition

[01:22:50] – What would the generalists miss in this space vs someone like Sorin that is a specialist