Confidential Client — $18.3M in NPV Savings Across 17 States in 18 Months

The Situation

A confidential corporate client engaged us following the decision to sell one of its core business lines. The timeline was non-negotiable — real estate implications of the divestiture had to be resolved concurrently with the corporate deal itself. The divested business line had operated across dozens of locations in 17 states, many of which would not transfer to the acquirer and remained the seller's responsibility unless disposed of before close.

The Challenge

Corporate restructurings create a category of real estate problem fundamentally different from ordinary portfolio management. Every lease liability remaining on the balance sheet at close affects the company's valuation, leverage ratios, and deal economics. Before any disposition strategy could be developed, we needed to model the present value, ASC 842 accounting treatment, and impairment implications of each exit option across multiple P&L periods.

The Approach

We began with a rapid portfolio audit assessing every location against remaining lease term, sublease achievability, and the ASC 842 accounting impact of each exit scenario. Labor and workplace analysis was conducted in parallel to determine which locations were candidates for disposition versus assignment to the acquirer. Scenario financial modeling was produced for the CFO on an ongoing basis — showing EBITDA impact, balance sheet impairment, and cash outflow in each quarter. Landlord negotiations were executed with that financial context as leverage, creating conditions for accelerated agreement at meaningful discounts to remaining lease liability.

The Execution

Across 18 months, we completed 10 lease buyouts and 7 subleases spanning 17 states — each structured individually, calibrated to the specific market, lease structure, and financial objective of the client in that quarter. The subleases required marketing under compressed timelines where structuring mattered as much as finding a subtenant, ensuring sublease economics were modeled accurately against head lease impairment before any deal was signed.