Neil Stern Estate Quotations

Tommy Hilfiger came in and created 300 shops. Now every one of the department store anchors has a Tommy shop and a Liz shop. It gave vendors more control, and it also was a real estate grab. There was no real defined reason to go to Marshall Field's because it has X, X and X that Carson's doesn't have.

Anna's Linen stores are mostly in what are called 'B' type locations or strip malls. We think that there's a lot of real estate currently available in that format. The other positive for the retailer is its appeal to ethnic communities, which we believe are underserved in the value-priced home furnishings arena.

Albertson's owns the ground under about 60 percent of their stores, including a fair amount in California. With Northern California real estate so difficult to come by, that has its own value.

An attractive aspect of this for them is that Albertson's owned a lot of the land under their stores. But there could be multiple reasons for buying these stores, including generating cash flow, the value of the real estate or to spin them off to another buyer.