Some Glazer property loans delinquent

If there's one thorn in the side of the Glazer family, owners of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and England's Manchester United soccer team, it's Andy Green.

An investment analyst and rabid Man U fan, Green has been probing the Glazers' finances through public documents and publishing embarrassing details about them. They can be found on his website.

Earlier this week, he posted his latest findings: The Glazers' retail real estate company, First Allied Corp., has failed to make payments on four shopping centers in the United States. His findings were published in the Guardian, a leading British newspaper, and other papers.

Combined with five other shopping centers that he wrote about earlier this summer, 9 Glazer-owned strip centers are delinquent on their mortgages, have defaulted or "gone bust," according to Green. That is out of First Allied's 68 shopping centers.

Green doesn't hide his distaste for the Glazers. Some Man U fans across England are upset about what they see as Man U's sky-high debt level. On his blog, Green writes that "the Glazer family are using the club as their personal piggy bank."

This week, the Tribune tried to vet some of what Green and the Guardian reported.

Is it true? Yes, to some extent.

Based on public financial filings, at least nine of First Allied's shopping centers have been classified as delinquent.

However, Green also appears to be making some assumptions that others might not make. At the least, Green doesn't appear to be giving the Glazers the benefit of the doubt.

An executive with First Allied did not return the Tribune's calls this week. Also, a spokesman for the Buccaneers was unable to comment.

Green's investigation relies on documents that are part of "commercial mortgage-backed securities," basically, commercial mortgages that are bundled together and sold to investors. Many, if not all, of First Allied's shopping center loans appear to be in these securities.

Green found that nine of the centers had missed at least one payment and were listed as delinquent in recent securities filings: three centers in Texas, three in Ohio, two in Georgia and one in Colorado. Four of the centers had "gone bust," or presumably foreclosed upon, although the Guardian article didn't explain the term.

The Tribune confirmed that the nine shopping centers have been listed as delinquent in recent securities documents.

On the surface, nine of 68 centers late on their payments sounds pretty bad. That is a delinquency/default rate of 13 percent. By comparison, the overall delinquency rate for retail properties in commercial mortgage-backed securities is only 6.25 percent, according to a recent report by Fitch Ratings.

That would imply that First Allied's delinquency rate is twice the national average.

However, at least three of the shopping centers - Dayton Mall Shoppes in Ohio, Ulster Terrace in Denver and University Plaza in Houston - have been delinquent for less than one month, according to securities filings.

It may be taking a leap to include those loans. Mary MacNeill, a Fitch Ratings analyst, told the Tribune that Fitch only takes note of mortgages after they've hit 60 days late. The average delinquency rate for all retail properties would be higher than 6.25 percent if Fitch factored in mortgages late for less than two months, she said.

"If it's just one month in the summer, that could be just a vacation," MacNeill says.

Meantime, Bob Hernandez, a commercial mortgage broker with NorthMarq Capital in Tampa, was underwhelmed by First Allied's delinquency rate.

If those nine centers are huge and represent a big percentage of First Allied's retail square footage, it could be a problem. If they're small, it may not be that big of a deal.

Reached by phone in England, Green acknowledged that a few of the shopping centers are only a month late on their mortgage payments. But, he said he's seen public documents showing each center's cash flow, and it doesn't look like they will be able to meet their upcoming payments, either.

He reads a lot into the fact that the Glazers' shopping center missed a payment. It's not just that someone forgot to cut a check, he insists, "they're doing it because they're giving up on the property."