You built equity in your building for 15 years. You locked in your costs. You paid rent to your own LLC and captured operating expenses back to yourself.

In your mind, the property makes the business more valuable.

But when a buyer shows up, they’re not thinking about it the same way.

Maybe they don’t want to tie up capital in real estate. Maybe they have higher priorities for that cash. Maybe they already have office space and don’t need yours. The building you see as an asset? They see it as a complication.

So you negotiate. You compromise. And compromise kills valuations.

It doesn’t stop there. A single clause buried deep in your lease — “assignment requires landlord approval” — can unwind a deal that was already agreed upon.

The buyer’s attorney finds it.

The landlord resets the rent to market rate.

The buyer recalculates.

The deal dies.

One sentence. Millions evaporated.

Russell Hughes has spent over 20 years working with Fortune 500 companies and middle-market businesses on commercial real estate strategy — with clients including Citi and Netflix. He’s seen these mistakes play out dozens of times. And here’s what he’ll tell you: the time to figure this out is not during due diligence. It’s two to three years before you list the business.

On May 13th, we’ll discuss:

• The Ownership Trap: Why the building you’ve treated as a wealth-builder can become the biggest obstacle in your deal — and what buyers actually think when they see real estate attached to a business.
• The Assignment Clause: How a below-market lease can quietly become a deal-killer, and what to look for in your lease right now.
• The Synergy Problem: How real estate complications cause buyers to discount the value of an otherwise strong business.
• The Sale-Leaseback Solution: How separating your property from your business — done at the right time — can increase both the sale price of the business and the value of the real estate.

The time to fix a property problem is before you have a buyer. Not during due diligence. Not at the closing table.

Who Should Watch This?

This session is essential for any business owner who is:

• Planning an exit in the next two to five years and owns the building their business operates from.
• Locked into a long-term lease and hasn’t reviewed the assignment language.
• Unsure whether to keep the real estate, sell it with the business, or structure a sale-leaseback.
• Working toward a clean, high-value transaction and wants to remove every obstacle before the buyer arrives.