The below press release went out this morning. It's a good news story that shows the resiliency of grocery and food logistics.
On a related note, Slate Retail REIT also recently announced that, as of April 14th, it had already collected 80% of April rents and was outperforming the industry. At that time and based on industry feedback, the REIT estimated that a number of retail strip center landlords were seeing April rent collections in the range of 40-50%.
TORONTO and LONDON, April 23, 2020 /CNW/ -- Slate Asset Management ("Slate"), a leading alternative asset management platform with a focus on real estate, announced today the final close of its Slate European Real Estate Fund III ("Slate Europe III"). Consistent with its predecessor funds, Slate Europe III will target grocery real estate assets in Europe. The oversubscribed closed-end fund exceeded its target size of €200 million and closed at its hard-cap of €250 million.
"During this unprecedented time of market disruption, we are pleased to close Slate Europe III at its hard-cap and are thankful for the confidence investors from diverse geographies continue to place in us as Slate expands its presence across Europe," said Brady Welch, Slate's London-based Founding Partner. "We have been investing in last-mile logistics for some time and are proud to launch our third fund in the European grocery real estate space since 2016, a feat that underscores our commitment to the sector and validates the importance of last-mile solutions in the grocery real estate market."
Since December 2016, Slate has completed a total of 250 grocery property acquisitions in Europe comprising over 450,000 square meters of gross leasable space. Slate has European offices in London, Frankfurt, Dublin and Luxembourg.
About Slate Asset Management
Slate Asset Management is a leading real estate-focused alternative investment platform with over $6.5 billion in assets under management. Slate is a value-oriented manager and a significant sponsor of all of its private and publicly traded investment vehicles, which are tailored to the unique goals and objectives of its investors. The firm's careful and selective investment approach creates long-term value with an emphasis on capital preservation and outsized returns. Slate is supported by exceptional people, flexible capital and a demonstrated ability to originate and execute on a wide range of compelling investment opportunities. Visit slateam.com to learn more.
For Further Information
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SOURCE Slate Asset Management L.P.
This morning the first Amazon Go store opened to the public in downtown Seattle. It’s more convenience store than grocery store, but the big deal is that there are no cashiers and no lines.
You enter the store through a gate and with your phone and Amazon’s app. As you walk around the store and pick up items they get automatically added to your online cart on Amazon. So everything goes right into the offline bag you’ll be leaving the store with. Place an item back on the shelf and it is instantly removed from your “cart.” Walk out of the store and you’re automatically charged.
It’s not yet clear how exactly the technology works, but Amazon says that all of this is accomplished through sophisticated computer vision (cameras), machine learning, and lots of sensors.
What’s really remarkable is that it doesn’t rely on every product having a special chip or sensor attached to it. I would think that was one of the biggest hurdles to overcome in order to remove the pain point of grocery store lines.
Now that this is up and running, I can only imagine the customer behavior data that they must be collecting. Heat maps of every shelf showing conversion rates for every imaginable customer segment. (Are tall people more likely to buy products displayed higher up?) Correlating people’s food purchases to their broader Amazon shopping habits. And the list, I’m sure, goes on.
There is even speculation that Amazon will begin licensing this technology to other retailers, similar to what it does with Amazon Web Services. That seems like a reasonable assumption given the data play we just talked about. Assuming the tech works, it’ll get copied. So they may as well embed themselves.
In case you were wondering, the Bureau of Labor Statistics pegs the number of cashiers in the US at about 3,555,500 (2016 number). And this number is projected to remain more or less flat until 2026.
That doesn’t feel right to me.
This past summer, an IGA store in Montreal’s Saint-Laurent borough erected “the largest organic green roof garden in the country.” It is about 25,000 square feet and it has a soil depth of only 150mm.
They also claim that it’s the first supermarket in Canada to sell produce grown on the roof of the actual store. The brand: Frais du toit, or fresh from the roof. There’s even a livestream in the vegetable aisle showing you how the goods are doing overhead.
I would be curious to know what their yields are like and what they are charging for the produce. But it’s certainly a praiseworthy initiative.
Below is a quick video that will give you an idea of what the roof looks like. If you can’t see it, click here.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z69ScyHCfU&w=560&h=315]