DISPOSITIONS & RESTRUCTURING A PORTFOLIO IN A DOWN MARKET
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Akamai is the global leader in Content Delivery Network (CDN), headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. During a deep recession cycle, the company had half a million feet of vacant long-term lease obligations that would significantly strain future cash reserves.

We were hired to develop and execute a disposition strategy focused on real estate positions in Cambridge, MA and the San Francisco Peninsula, California.

We worked with the CFO and finance team to develop a multi-pronged disposition program. We presented an exit plan for excess and vacant facilities that included subleasing if there was a market, cash buyouts to terminate, and lease restructurings. Restructuring was complicated by the fact that mortgages on some properties had been stripped and sold into pools of collateralized mortgage obligations [CMOs]. To achieve a restructuring, besides the approval of the landlord, we needed to identify the pool and the ‘special servicer’ in that tranche who could approve modifications, and agree to terms of an offer.

Through a combination of building-specific cost mitigation strategies, detective work, perseverance, negotiation skills and market opportunism and agility, we succeeded in delivering $138 million in reductions of long-term lease obligations.

We leveraged a portion of those savings to negotiate a new lease in a Kendall Square location with building headquarters signage and expansion opportunities – that site continues to be Akamai’s corporate headquarters today.

We remained Akamai’s preferred domestic real estate broker, handling routine expansions and contractions for the next five years.