Good morning, almost 40% of annual carbon emission results from building operations and construction.
But thankfully, the global hug-a-tree movement has spurred shifts in the real estate and development arenas too, with many sector participants committing to more sustainable practices.
🍀 Per Paul Morassutti of CBRE, “For commercial real estate, 2022 will be the year that ESG transitions from the ‘what’ to the ‘how,’ or from the ambition to the execution.”
Developers and REITs are among those setting net-zero targets for their operations and for new buildings and developments. Their senses be praised.
🌞🥤🥤🥤
Reliance Drops Future Retail Like A Hot Potato
Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd. (RRVL) has just dropped its INR 24,713 crore takeover bid of Future Retail Ltd. (FRL) like a hot potato, leaving Amazon flummoxed.
Why: RRVL cited 69.29% of Future’s secured creditors voting against its move as the reason. Future required 75% of secured creditors' approval to implement the takeover by Reliance.
Quick Background
Amazon, the world’s biggest e-commerce company had made an offer of INR 7,000 crore to Kishore Biyani to acquire his retail business, while applying heavy-duty legal pressure on the latter to cancel his deal with Ambani.
As Ambani has backed out of the deal, Bezos should be a relieved man for at least not allowing the former to take over the business of FRL, but turns out, relief in the FRL takeover is more of a gangland myth.
Those Assets Belong To Me
In a complete surprise to the whole world, in February 2022, Reliance India Limited (RIL) took over 800 out of 1,400 Future retail stores, comprising 60% of its revenues.
Mind you, these were not just flagship Big Bazaars, but also Heritages, FBBs, and Easydays. Instead of lease take-overs from FRL, Reliance signed direct leases with the realty owners, ousting Future as a tenant from all these outlets. RIL then opened its own brand stores in the same spaces.
A majority of remaining Future Group stores are currently inactive and do not have much value for Reliance, Amazon or even the group’s creditors.
😳 WTF? Yo. The Future Group owes around INR 20,000 crore to its secured creditors including banks and around INR 8,000 crore to its unsecured creditors and vendors.
Per a regulatory filing, Future Enterprises has defaulted on its payment of INR 2911.51 crore to various consortium banks and lenders between 23rd March 2022 to 31st March 2022.
What happens now?
Future Group will now go through bankruptcy proceedings under IBC, although creditors may be unable to recover anything substantial.
Amazon stands to get nothing much either and Jeff's only option is to get into a long, expensive legal battle to try and set things right.
🤞
Dubai Approves Dh6.3 billion Housing Package
Dubai’s new Dh6.3 billion housing package is a happy gift before Eid Al Fitr. It will cover land and housing allotments for 4,610 Emiratis.
Key Highlights
📎 Housing programme gets approval from His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum
📎 1,110 Al Khawaneej 2 homes and 3,500 plots in Al Aweer and Umm Nahad 4
📎The Emirati Housing Programme got Dh65 billion in 2021, which will be spent over two decades
📎 His Highness has directed the quadrupling of the beneficiary count from 2023, with allotted plots increasing to 1.7 billion sq. ft. in total.
Tuesday Treat
Say hello to the granddaddy of all smart watches - the Seiko TV Watch manufactured in 1982.
What (on Earth) Is It?
The wrist component of the Seiko T001 looks discreet enough (if you are willing to ignore the minor inconvenience of the port used to dock the watch to the TV receiver.)
Made up of 2 separate screens, the top, narrow screen was just for time, date and alarm features. The lower screen was for the video output.
💡 The flat screen has been around exactly as long as millennials.
Canada's Red Hot Housing Market: A Summer Update
Guess what? Canada’s standard housing price is now two times more than its U.S. counterpart, and this runaway home price train is running over more and more prospective homebuyers every day.
A Quick Overview
🔼 30% home price hikes from early-2020.
😔 Highest home ownership costs in 31 years.
📈 The CAD 816,720 average home price today is 50% higher than pre-pandemic price.
👀 Home prices are now 9X of household income.
Zooming In
Home-buying in Canada had become a somewhat affordable affair in 2020, thanks to relief measures and lower interest rates, but a surge in demand and short supply coincided to make the market unaffordable again.
Fire-Fighting Measures To Cool Prices
🧯 2022 annual budget with 29 specific measures (CAD10 billion outlay) over 5 years.
🧯 Two-year ban on home purchases by foreigners.
🧯 Record-home building with 32,000 units underway.
🧯 Interest rate hikes.
And if this doesn’t get you de-sizzled already, then we don’t know what else will.
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As the heat wave across our nation continues, we urge you to stay in the shade from 12 noon to 4 pm, pipe down on the caffeine, say no to that cold beer, and choose fruits and water instead.
Have a good day. More updates tomorrow. 💚
☕ The Crew@Ginger Chai