Morning,

Last week, I showed you exactly how AI decides which sponsors get cited and which ones never show up.

That wasn’t theory.

That was the playbook.

Here’s the reality though: Knowing how this works and actually implementing it are two very different things.

Doing it properly means:

• Choosing the right investor-facing questions
• Structuring answers the way AI can actually use
• Quantifying experience instead of describing it
• Repeating the process consistently

Most sponsors simply won’t do that at scale. And as a result, they stay invisible at the exact moment investors are deciding where to allocate capital.

So I built a special program to implement this for you.

It’s called GEO article authorship, and it’s designed to do one thing:

Make you discoverable to investors using AI to find sponsors they can trust.

​I’ve outlined exactly how it works here.​

-> What investors are already doing with AI

-> How GEO works in practice

-> Exactly what you get in the program

-> When this makes sense and when it doesn’t

​You can see it here.​

This is not blogging.

This is not marketing fluff.

This is investor acquisition infrastructure.

If raising capital is getting harder, this is one of the few levers that actually reduces friction instead of adding more work.

​Take a look here.​

If it resonates, there's a link to book a call and we’ll see if it fits your situation.

If it doesn’t, I'll still give you some actionable guidance that will move the needle for you in this challenging environment.

​All here.​

Adam

This week's Podcast/YouTube show

Guest: Jeffrey Rosenberg, Chairman & CEO, Big V Property Group

From Supermarkets to Open-Air Power Centers

Jeff Rosenberg didn’t enter open-air retail as a cycle-timer. His family built and operated supermarkets and the centers that housed them starting in the 1940s.

After selling the operating company in the late 1980s, the real estate platform evolved into Big V Property Group’s national focus on open-air shopping centers.

That lineage drives Big V’s philosophy: long retailer relationships, deep familiarity with store-level performance, and a willingness to hold through full cycles when the risk-adjusted return warrants it.
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Why “Dying” Retail Didn’t Die

For years, retail was viewed as structurally broken. E-commerce growth and Covid shutdowns convinced many lenders and investors that physical shopping was finished. Big V disagreed.Rosenberg argues the mistake was assuming online and in-store retail substitute for each other.

In reality, today’s retailers treat stores as omnichannel infrastructure – part showroom, part warehouse, part last-mile distribution.A store opening in a market can lift online traffic by roughly 30%; closing one can reduce it by a similar amount. In Big V centers, tenants like Target and Best Buy now operate as local logistics hubs as much as traditional shops.

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Discount Anchors and Ecosystem Effects

Big V’s portfolio is built around discount power centers anchored by national credit tenants like Target, Ross, TJ Maxx, HomeGoods, Sierra Trading. Target in particular shapes market selection, invests heavily in demographic analysis, and requires infrastructure improvements that benefit the rest of the center.

The result is an anchor-led ecosystem where tenant demand, retailer credit, and long-term trade area strength reinforce one another.

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Supply Discipline and Location Quality
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​Retail’s current strength reflects supply dynamics as much as demand. New development has been minimal for two decades. Open-air centers are 96–97% occupied, and most closures reflect chains pruning weaker sites, not structural retreat.Those relocations sharpen Big V’s bias toward “main and main” locations and durable growth markets.

The team now layers analytics over traditional fieldwork to track not just where demographics are strong today but how retail nodes are shifting. In some cases, that has meant selling centers whose long-term demand picture no longer matched the original thesis.

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Capital Stack and Institutional Momentum

Historically, Big V financed acquisitions with senior debt, mezz or pref equity, and high-net-worth capital from either the principals’ own family or from other family offices. Leverage that once reached 75% now sits closer to 60–65%, with mezz or pref filling the gap.As retail’s reputation has improved, lender appetite has grown.

A recent example: Big V rolled eight “iconic” properties, about $1.1 billion, into a single vehicle financed with a $765 million bank loan led by Truist. It’s the largest retail loan that bank has closed and the largest retail debt recapitalization in the country in 2025, suggesting that for strong sponsors with strong assets, balance-sheet capital is available at scale.

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Investor Sentiment and Returns

Rosenberg describes his high-net-worth and family-office investors as cautious but engaged. Today’s retail, he argues, offers more consistent yields than sectors such as multifamily or office.Core assets are producing 6–7% cash-on-cash, with total returns driven by NOI growth. A multi-state roll-up fund adds risk diversification across markets. And pass-through depreciation and amortization enhance after-tax returns beyond headline yields.

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2026, Cycles, and No Cap-Rate Compression
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​Rosenberg expects 2026 to bring more liquidity, more demand, and more competition. That also means lower yields on high-quality retail. Big V now underwrites without assuming cap-rate compression; upside must come from rent growth, leasing, and execution, not capital-markets tailwinds.

They also extend their horizon. Each acquisition is evaluated against what the 2030’s interest rate environment might look like, not just a three- to five-year plan. That conservatism underpins a track record Rosenberg states directly: “We have never lost our investors money. Ever.”
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Key Takeaways

• Stores are infrastructure. Incorporate the omnichannel role into underwriting.
• Supply discipline supports stability. Under-building plus high occupancy creates a different backdrop from other sectors.
• Anchors drive long-term value. Understand where major discounters are expanding and where they’re not.
• Capital is concentrating in “safe” retail. Expect competition for quality to intensify.
• Do not rely on cap-rate compression. If the deal needs it, the risk/return balance is off.

Open-air retail is no longer an unfashionable corner of the market. For disciplined capital, it offers durable, tax-efficient cash flow if you’re willing to stay conservative, stay local, and think further ahead than the rest of the field.
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​Watch/listen to full episode here.

​Please join the conversation on LinkedIn, here.​

Or feel free to reply to this email with any thoughts or comments.

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