Replies to post #54838 on NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

[AVII77]

AVII notes that they moved into a more reasonably priced rental space in 2009 for around $13K, which is much less than the $35K monthly rate

but they still had to give Toucan about $5k month for a couple years to buyout the old lease when they left.

Effective November 30, 2009, the Sublease was terminated in connection with termination and buyout of the overall lease of this space. (The overall lease and the Company’s Sublease had 7 years left to run at that time). The termination and buyout did not require any lump sum exit payment. Instead, it requires a partial payout over several years. The obligation for the Company will be less than $5,000 per month during 2010 and 2011.

and when they left, Toucan moved in with them. For at least a little while they thought about actually charging Toucan rent.

The Company expects to lease part of this space to Toucan and proceeds of this sublease, if any, will be offset against the minimum lease payments specified above.

They stopped mentioning it in the filings after 1 or 2 quarters.

Probably just an oversight.

[Evaluate]

Your post includes:

Then they moved down the street and entered into another sublease in Dec 2009. This was between American Cap ltd and NWBO.

"They leased 7097 sq ft of space. The monthly rent was $13,306/month."

Now RKmatters, are you sure that the space that they were subleasing from Toucan was ALSO around 7000 square feet?
Or could it be that for the $34,000/month they were actually utilizing a much larger square footage. I do not believe that this is clear in AVII's Tale of 2 Leases.

[Doktornolittle]

Housing prices are only up 20% now from 2008 because 2008 was the peak of the housing bubble. I can't find charts for commercial lease space, but it was probably similar.

That doesn't answer all the issues you brought up by any means, but do realize further that not only were property prices very high in 2008, they were climbing at a scary rate, so depending on just when in 2008 a deal was done, many would have felt relieved to nail down a longer term deal at the current rate.

Further, just because they found another space that was much cheaper doesn't mean it was a comparable space. From what I see in listings for the wider Bethesda area, there is a very large range in lease rates. Not quite as large as the drop you describe would accomodate, but about a factor of two anyway. Was the cheap new space also smaller?