RE:RE:RE:Sake and leaseback of Commercial Real Estate It's an interesting discussion.
Often times, the market doesn't know how to value a company and the share price can remain depressed for years, if not decades. One way to validate the value that is inherent in the company is to liquidate long term assets and then tell investors, "look how much money we have now." A perfect example of this would be Leon's. They hold a tonne of real estate value but the market has fallen asleep at the wheel. The negative is that rents/lease increase every year and that's something you have no control over.
Investors want to see money today and care less about tomorrow. This is how time value of money works.
Another point to consider is the following:
What do they do with the money? Can the company generate a higher return with the proceeds or does it simply get paid out as a special dividend?
At the end of the day, shareholders want to see the share price go up. A sale and leaseback makes a lot of sense to unlock value in the company, even if it's at the expense of something you have no control over. Why? Because the value in the real estate alone is worth much more than the current market cap today and that's a large discrepancy that's hard to ignore.