Liquidation expert: COVID-19 will cause a huge rise in dispositions

It’s a well-known fact that per capita retail square footage in the United States is nearly twice the amount found in the United Kingdom or Japan. That’s a situation that’s likely to change following the coronavirus lockdown, said the leader of an asset liquidation company.

“This event may expedite the reduction to get us where a lot of the other countries are in terms of retail square footage. I don’t see how the next year or two are not going to be very busy in retail store closings, unfortunately,” Tiger Capital Group co-founder Dan Kane said in a podcast posted by The ABF Journal.

Such events remain in a holding pattern as long as COVID-19 shutdowns remain in effect, however. Store closure and going-out-of-business sales can’t happen when stores are not open.  This situation caused a delay in the bankruptcy sell-offs of Modell’s, for instance.

Kane said that his company has been able to conduct online auctions for commercial and industrial goods. 

“We actually had two auctions in March that we were very happy with,” Kane said.