The closing of 50 Best Buy (BBY) retail stores has the potential to impact seven large commercial mortgage-backed securities loans, but those loans remain current to date, Trepp said.
Best Buy announced plans in March to shut down 50 U.S. retail stores by the end of 2012.
The seven loans had a total value of $188.6 million.
The analytics firm also reported on the $50.7 million Fayette Pavilion III & IV loan, which backs a retail center adjacent to an anchor Best Buy.
“We included this loan as the closure of the Best Buy could reduce traffic to the Fayette Pavilion property although there does not appear to be direct exposure to the closing,” Trepp analytics said.
This is not the first time an analytics firm has jumped in to analyze the negative CMBS effects of retail store closings.
In late 2011, Sears announced the closing of 100 to 120 Sears and Kmart stores.
Soon after, Fitch Ratings studied 255 loans with exposure to the two retailers and found “little risk of a negative impact on CMBS.”
kpanchuk@housingwire.com
