Polpo Capital Management, a New York hedge fund founded by Daniel McNamara, is betting against the US commercial property market, having notched up a 119% gain with a short debt linked to US shopping malls, according to a report by Bloomberg.
In an interview with Bloomberg, McNamara said that he believes that in the post-Covid world, a large number of older offices will fail to find favour with workers, making them less attractive to occupiers and triggering a wave of defaults.
And McNamara isn’t alone in believing that there is trouble ahead for less desireable workplaces, with Marathon Asset Management CEO Bruce Richards also reportedly speculating that a fall in demand for for older buildings or those in unpopular locations could spur a wave of defaults.
Both investors are said to be using derivative indexes that track the performance of commercial-backed securities to short the office market in a similar strategy that paid of with bets against malls for McNamara and other investors back in 2020.
