Lawsy Originals
Conversations with lawyers about the real stories behind their careers.
Lawsy Originals
Tristan Dollie, Partner at Brown Rudnick — On Special Situations, High Net Worth Clients and the Evolution of Modern Dealmaking
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In this episode, Tristan Dollie, partner in Brown Rudnick’s special situations team, explains what “special situations” actually means in practice and why some of the most interesting deals in the market sit outside conventional legal structures.
Tristan breaks down the three broad categories of special situations work and explains how his team combines legal expertise with investment banking and commercial advisory experience to help clients structure and execute unconventional transactions.
The conversation explores the types of clients Brown Rudnick works with, including high net worth individuals, family offices, entrepreneurs and opportunistic investment funds, as well as how these relationships differ from working with traditional institutional clients.
Tristan shares insights into how the firm sources work and develops client relationships, including travelling internationally to meet investors in places like Monaco and Dubai and why face-to-face interaction remains essential in a relationship-driven market.
The episode dives into how special situations lawyers often go beyond purely legal work — sourcing opportunities, introducing equity partners, speaking to lenders and helping clients identify off-market assets and investment opportunities.
Tristan explains how this approach differs from the traditional image of transactional law and why entrepreneurial thinking, commercial awareness and creativity are becoming increasingly valuable skills within modern legal practice.
Tristan reflects on the unpredictability of deals in the special situations world, sharing examples of transactions that evolved completely differently from how they were originally structured and why adaptability is essential when operating in this environment.
Tristan also discusses what makes a successful special situations lawyer, including curiosity, comfort with ambiguity and the ability to think creatively across multiple disciplines rather than simply applying standard precedents.
The conversation then turns to broader market trends, including the growing investor interest in healthcare assets, care homes and alternative real estate investments, as well as the evolving future of offices, retail and mixed-use developments.
Tristan shares insights into how shopping centres and retail assets are adapting post-COVID, including the increasing focus on entertainment, food and beverage offerings and experiential destinations rather than traditional retail alone.
Finally, Tristan reflects on the changing nature of legal careers, why some of the most interesting opportunities exist outside traditional law firm structures and how young lawyers can differentiate themselves through commercial thinking and relationship building.
00:00 Introduction
00:20 Meet Tristan Dollie & Brown Rudnick
01:00 What is a Special Situations Team?
02:00 Complex Transactions, Distress & Litigation-Linked Deals
03:00 Working with Difficult Jurisdictions & Sanctions Issues
04:00 How Clients Are Sourced
05:00 Monaco, Dubai & Relationship-Driven Business Development
06:00 High Net Worth Individuals vs Institutional Clients
08:00 Bringing Additional Value Beyond Legal Advice
10:00 Sourcing Deals, Assets & Financing Opportunities
12:00 Lawyers Acting Like Investment Bankers
13:00 Entrepreneurial Law Firms vs Traditional Models
14:00 Brown Rudnick’s Approach to Dealmaking
15:00 What Makes a Good Special Situations Lawyer?
17:00 Why Curiosity & Creativity Matter
18:00 Working with Ultra High Net Worth Clients
20:00 How Different These Transactions Really Are
21:00 A Real Deal That Completely Changed Structure
23:00 Flexibility, Negotiation & Commercial Thinking
24:00 Hiring Lawyers from Non-Traditional Backgrounds
25:00 Market Trends: Healthcare & Care Homes
26:00 Retail, Offices & Alternative Asset Classes
27:00 E-Gaming, Shopping Centres & Experiential Retail
28:00 Why Retail Isn’t Dead
29:00 Final Reflections & Career Advice
Tristan, thanks for joining me today.
SPEAKER_01Pleasure.
SPEAKER_00Good to see you again. How are you? Yeah, good, thank you. So look, please could you introduce yourself?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, sure. So um I'm Tristan Dolly. I'm a partner in Brown Rudnik's special situations team uh based in London.
SPEAKER_00Nice. So special situations then I mean, what what is that?
SPEAKER_01So as the name suggests, it can mean a lot of different things. And you know, historically, special situations was more in relation to restructuring, usually in US firms. Um but for Brown Rudnick, I I guess it relates to transactions that fall into one of three baskets. So basket one can be transactions which are um particularly complex for whatever reason, be that very uh very structured in terms of the levels of finance in there. It can be that um you have a particularly spicy jurisdictional client sometimes. Um that'd be the first bucket. The second bucket tends to be transactions where there's an element of distress. Um, borrower can't pay, and borrower or lender, depending on who you're acting for, are trying to find a way to use that situation to its advantage. Um, and the third bucket, I guess, is um transactions where there's an element of litigation. You know, uh two shareholders that own a property, for example, uh via an SPV have fallen out, but the property needs financing. And and and those are kind of the three main buckets. But as a team, we are predominantly, well, almost all of us are finance lawyers. Yeah. And what I think makes it a special situations team is that we are finance lawyers, but almost all of us have spent long periods of time in either investment banks, acting um sorry, uh, in funds or in family offices. Yeah. And we try and leverage that kind of non-legal experience to then go out and structure deals, you know, sourcing capital, finding equity partners for clients, um, coming up with interesting structures to help them get a little bit more out of it. But also sourcing transactions, you know, clients um say, Do you know of any assets that fit this description that are off that are on the market, off market?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And quite often we know of one or two hotels or buildings or whatever, and just try and putting people together.
SPEAKER_00So in terms of special, then is that because no other lenders want to go near? Because it's a bit risky, or is it what what what makes it special in that sense?
SPEAKER_01It depends. So what makes it special can be a number of things. But if we take the first bucket of special sits kind of matters, um, it can be that there are more levels of debt than is conventional. You know, convention would be one. Often now, convention is having senior AMES, so two. But we've worked on structures where there are five or six. Um, so that makes uh makes it a little trickier for lenders to get their head round and you need to think a little bit more creatively about it. Equally, we've got some clients who are kind of um from spicier jurisdictions, which some lenders, for reputational reasons, need a little bit more comfort around their background, source of funds, that sort of thing. And so it's more of a and in that instance, it's more of a hand-holding, white-collar, perhaps sanctions, guidance and advice that you need to put together to make everyone comfortable that this is fine.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So it's those layers of additional complexity or unusual elements that you don't usually see in vanilla transactions.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Where do these where do these people come from? I mean, where where do clients come from in that respect? Are they relatively easy to find or are they in a bit of a hidden world?
SPEAKER_01I wish they were easier to find. Yeah. Um so they they come from a variety of spaces uh places. Um more often than not, they come from recommendations from other clients, yeah, which is great because nothing says you've done a great job and someone's happy when they recommend you to their mate. Yeah. Right. Um, they also sometimes come from um other law firms, um, which is a relatively unusual. Um, when a law firm just doesn't have that special expertise, for example, in sanctions, yeah. Um, they can then refer you to someone to us, and and we can provide that advice that makes them look good for referring them to someone, and we appreciate the referral, so we're not going to try and steal all their work, uh just the bit that's been referred to us. It comes from a variety of places, but also traditional going out, beating the pavement, speaking to people, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think there's no replacement for that, just just knocking on doors.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Zoom. Well, not I should maybe get some flyers printed. Um, but yeah, Zoom's just not gonna cut it. Yeah. You know, you've got to be out there, you've got to be seeing people. You know, a lot of our clients are, we might come on to it in a bit more later, but we don't really do any institution work for institutional clients. So you need to go to the places where these sorts of people live. So Monaco, uh Dubai, those sorts of places, you need to be there to see them. And the fact that you actually go off and you know pay to go and see people speculatively, that cuts you apart from everyone else immediately.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01If you're having to buy a plane ticket and spend several days in a hotel to go and try and meet people, people appreciate that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So in terms of those clients that I know I know you mentioned they're not institutionalists. So for example, they're not like a mainstream bank with a corporate office. There are more, is it more high net worth individuals? I mean, where where does it give estate?
SPEAKER_01I would say, you know, as a firm, we don't tend to work for institutions. There are always exceptions, um, and we do some work for um some listed entities as well. But certainly in my practice area, the um the clients that we're working for are um entrepreneurs, high net worth individuals, um, family offices, asset managers, and some sharp-elbowed funds.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. All of that within the real estate sphere.
SPEAKER_01Within the special sit sphere. And and what's interesting about that group of clients, and for example, I'm doing a transaction at the moment for um an ultra high net worth individual. He uh invested, he was a tradition, traditionally a real estate investor. Yeah. And he'll keep doing that if he's keeps making money doing it. Yeah, yeah. But at the moment, I'm looking at a a transaction for him where we are financing the acquisition of some litigation claims. So what's good about those sorts of clients is they're quite dynamic. They're not just we just do real estate and if there's no deal, we'll wait. These guys want to turn their money, they want to do things. They what they don't need the money, but they like doing it, right? So um they they will turn their hand to most things. For me, it's mainly there's a real estate element there, yeah. But it it it's not always the case. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So the let's say, for example, the underlying asset that that you're engaging with is real estate because of the nature of these people, there's other work that comes from it. For example, you mentioned sanctions or uh whatever else it may be. What's the firm's strategy in terms of hunting for that? I mean, for example, would you approach someone from a real estate perspective? I know it's special situations, but would you approach someone from a real estate perspective, or would you come into the room with um maybe a sanctions lawyer as well? I mean, how does that work?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so uh if you know a bit of background about the person you're meeting before you meet them, which you should do, yeah, you will know whether there's going to be what other areas are going to be of interest. So if an individual has a last name which has made opening bank accounts quite difficult, yeah. I'd speak to a partner in our white-collar sanctions team saying, Hey, I'm meeting XYZ. Do you fancy coming along? Because whilst they're a real estate investor, I suspect there might be some other work that we might be able to do for them. Yeah. And then you can kind of provide that more holistic passive package for them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I think that kind of goes outside of the I think some practice areas lean more towards being a specialist and being hyper-focused. Um, whereas other practice areas can be a lot more, and it's all based around client and industry, but they can be a lot more collaborative and uh a bit more room to bring other people in and to add value to clients beyond just your practice area. Yeah. Um I mean, is there any anything that that you guys do in terms of adding extra value to clients beyond the legal stuff?
SPEAKER_01Definitely. So um, I mean, what is a so a client invests in real estate, say?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Their business is not providing work to real estate finance lawyers like me. Their business is to invest in real estate and to get a return on that, be it via development, letting it up, whatever. Um, but what we need to do, and what all service providers should do, whether it's legal or otherwise, I think, is think about right, okay, that's what I personally can provide, but how else can we make their life easier? That's it, that's it, all it is. How can you make their life easier and more profitable if they're chasing profit? So in the case of you know, special sits and what we do, um we will say to um clients, you know, um, we'll catch up with them regularly, whether there's a deal on or not. What's going on, you know, what's keeping you up at night, what's what come across your desk that's of interest? And then if they say, you know, I'm quite interested in deploying some capital in, I don't know, um uh the uh south of France, and I quite like the hotel space. Okay, that's interesting. Thank you. And then I'll speak to the rest of the team at our weekly catch-ups. Does anyone know of any um hotel assets between X, Y, and Z range, um, this sort of location that we that we think might be um either owned by one of our clients they might be looking to get rid of, or that we've heard a broker or someone mention that might be available? Okay, there's this hotel, great. I'll then go and speak to lenders to say, is this the sort of asset you'd be interested in lending on? That's pretty a huge amount of time, but a decent amount of time. And then if you can put together a kind of a package that's not committed, but say, look, you mentioned this, have a look at the attached. I think this might fit the bill. It's got some capital expenditure, which means you can increase the capital value if you um if you invest in it, um, and it's got a decent income. And here are a couple of lenders that said that they theoretically they'd be interested in lending on that asset. All of a sudden, you've gone from being a boring real estate finance lawyer to someone who can actually feed them transactions. And within our own team, we've got people that actually have worked at you know investment funds and can analyse these transactions, not from a legal perspective, but as if they were investing in it themselves. And if you can provide that info, okay, it's not going to be exactly what they want, or they might want it in a slightly different way, but you're you're already providing far more than anyone else on the street. And so if they then if they do that deal or not, it doesn't really matter because you've already got such amount of goodwill there in the bank. And then the next deal that they have, well, Kristen's team bring the opportunities. I'm going to give them the work. And if they do do the deal that you presented, you can arrange a far more attractive fee for yourself as the firm than you would if you were just being presented with a deal on a term sheet that's already cooked.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So this sounds like we're straying from lawyer into more of a banker. And I think most people's conception of what law is prior to joining a law firm is is you know, it's a it's a vast industry that has a lot of opportunities. And I don't think many people are aware that there are um there is this kind of law out there rather than just that the pure technical. Um I think for most people it's very abstract.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I and I think that's fair, and I think because actually most firms don't do it.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, you know, the a a law firm, a conventional law firm, let's say, may well say, oh, uh this this letter if they're acting for a borrower, this lender's decided not to do the deal. Let me speak to my colleagues to see if any of the other lenders we act for might be interested. But that's kind of as far as it'll go.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It won't go further into, as you say, a more um investment banker, merchant banker kind of role, which is really kind of the the DNA of our team. It's to merge the the legal and that kind of investment banker role together to provide a one-stop shop. Now, it's not for every client. Some clients want you to stay in your lane and and and do the legal work. That's absolutely fine. Happy to do that. Equally, others, and they tend to be the clients we act for mostly, um like that dynamism. They like that, you know. Who doesn't like someone presenting a possible transaction to them?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's a win-win.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I I think you have to get creative. You know, there's a pretty difficult broader macro economy at the minute. And instead of everybody taking a piece of a growing pie, people are fighting over a pie that isn't necessarily growing at the minute. So this kind of thing is a great differentiator for clients to really separate you out from from the others.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and we often, unlike almost other and any other law firm um in our industry, uh we'll often do um work on a fully contingent basis. So if the deal doesn't close, we don't get paid. Yeah. So we are entirely aligned with you to get the deal done. There's no, oh delay, delay, try and get the hours up on the clock. It doesn't matter because it's a bit, you know, our deal, our our fees are quite often a percentage of the deal. Yeah. So it's fixed. And whether we get paid is binary. So the deal closes, you get paid. The deal doesn't close, you don't get paid.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Because I I think that again, from the outside perspective, I think there is the broad brush of the US firm. And and again, that that manicure is is uh varied between between firms. It sounds like Brown Rudnick is very different from from what people imagine in in most people's minds of what a US firm is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean uh the when people distinguish between kind of city or UK firms and US firms, they do usually do it in the context of how much they're paying you and the NQ salary going to whatever. Like, um, and okay, yes, that gets headlines, but it's not really um what makes them so different. What makes them so different in my experience is the nature of the clients, yeah, and um and and also the the their general approach. US law firms are leaner, and and there's it seems to me, and although there will be exceptions, that they tend to be far more entrepreneurial in the way that I just described about our team.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Well, I I think you have to be. I said if you if you're in a leaner team, you know, there there's less capacity going around, so everybody has to chip in beyond just the technical side of things as well.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_00So in terms of a special situations lawyer, then you've mentioned what that looks like in terms of the actual work you're doing. In terms of who are special situations lawyers, I mean, uh are they grown straight from NQ or do they a different lawyer that merges into it? I mean, how do you get into special situations?
SPEAKER_01I think it's uh I can only speak for our team because all special situations teams, I guess, are different. But in our team, we do hire NQs into it. Yeah. Um, what I would say though is that what makes I think a good special situations lawyer is you need as a baseline for any good lawyer, it you need to know the technicals that are relevant to your area of practice. Um, but above that, I think it is a curiosity as to how things can not are done, but how they can be done. Yeah. Um, and it's someone who is comfortable not having um kind of cookie-cutter deals. Yeah. Because very rarely do we do a deal that looks like the one before and the one before that. And there's nothing wrong with lawyers that do that, right? And they earn very good money and become experts in every single sort of aspect of that sort of document, and that that document architecture, they'll know like the back of their hand, great. But for me, I quite like the fact that my deals are different, and when I see a concept, I think, well, where have I seen that before? Oh, I've seen that somewhere else, or that's similar to this, and you can kind of piece things together with different areas of expertise. And to your question around what makes a good special sits lawyer, I think in my experience, it's having a diversity of transactions under your belt, and um that paired with a uh a willingness to look at different ways to do things. It can't if if you're just doing a cookie-cutter deal, you'll the only sort of deals you'll know are the ones you've done that are exactly the same, and and and that doesn't really work when you're trying to deal with a situation which is by its very nature unusual.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And also you need a willingness to travel to the south of France every now and again.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's difficult, isn't it? It's uh we we we do what we can.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So in in terms of where a client's based, I know you mentioned the high high net worth in high net worth individuals. Is it um based in a certain area, Monaco, Saint Trepe, all these kind of places, or is it is it is it really globally spread?
SPEAKER_01So it's in so at the moment, over the last few years, um, given government policies, there's been a noticeable move of Italy. Uh well, Italy, one of them, although I think they backtracked on what they were willing to provide people in terms of the cap of tax. I think it I think they might have cut it in half or something, but but anyway, but a lot of clients have moved, particularly the ultra high net worth individuals who had their business here, can keep their business here, but decided to move to Monaco. So we've had I've had three clients move to Monaco, another one in the team in um client of the team went to uh Dubai. Um so there is for the most part you know, these clients are not living in the UK anymore.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So in terms of client personalities, then I would imagine if you're dealing with uh an institutional corporate, maybe the office hours are more uh structured.
SPEAKER_01I mean, how how do how do things vary in terms of uh client personalities and yeah, I I think um even if you're acting for an institution you're still as a as a lawyer at a city firm or you're you're still going to be putting in long hours sometimes. That's just an inescapable fact. And and that's kind of what we all know and sign up for. In terms of personalities, there is definitely a difference. If you're working for an institution, um it is not their money that they're investing or lending, it is their LPs, it is their you know investors, it's their money. Whereas with uh high net worth individuals, family offices, funds, it is their money, or it's or the money is very, very close to the people you're speaking to. Yeah. So they get far more passionate about certain points, and that's good in some ways. It can be harder and trickier to deal with in in in some negotiations because it's difficult for them to approach it dispassionately. Um, and that's not always the case, but sometimes it's the case. So that's the main difference, I think, between institutional clients and our clients. They are more personally invested in that deal because the outcome can, in some cases, add a another couple of zeros to their net worth, or they could lose, they could, they could lose all of it. Yeah, yeah. You know, it it it can make and break them sometimes.
SPEAKER_00So was that one of the most surprising things then about moving into the special situations world that that change of uh client personality?
SPEAKER_01Um that that was I I I anticipated it and and before before I moved, um, I had worked for you know ul ultra high net worth individuals before. In fact, before I qualified, I um I lived in Switzerland for a year working for a family office, family office of three people, of which I was one, and the principal was the other. So I I was already familiar with it, so I anticipated it being like that. Um, and that was actually one of the draws, to be honest. But what surprised me about um about the work was how unstructured it was. Um, you know, you've because you know institutions have their processes, they go from X to Y to Z and different levels of approval, etc., and different forms of term sheet that they're that you're used to seeing. Whereas when you're dealing with these sorts of clients, they don't have those processes. The process is I've seen that, I like it, I want to invest, call Brown Rudnik. And so it's a lot more ad hoc. And so you need to um okay, to give you an example of of something that actually happened. So we were going to do a sale and lease back of a um of a hotel, a large hotel in um in London, just outside of Mayfair. Um, the client found the transaction, negotiated it, but needed a joint venture partner. Um, we introduced them to a joint venture partner. Unfortunately, it came pretty obvious that the joint venture partner and our client were not going to get on. And this is a 30 35 year relationship. They were already getting very, very stressy with each other, and it got to To a point where our client said, I'm just not going to do the deal. And by the way, I've got exclusivity, and you're not you, joint venture partner, don't think you can do it by yourself. Yeah. Because you can't. And they couldn't. So the deal that we thought was going to happen didn't happen. We said to the client, Look, you can't get into bed with someone who you're already fighting with. Right? That's going to be a very unhappy marriage for the next 35 years and it will end in litigation. And no one needs that. So rather than just drop it and walk away, why don't you why don't we suggest to the other side, how about you buy out our client's position in the exclusivity and you execute the deal yourself? And our client will take a much a very large arrangement fee for basically bringing you the deal. Our client gets a load of cash up front, I think it was like five or six million for basically introducing someone to something. And you get to actually um do the deal in your own way without our client's involvement. And so that's what we did. So a huge sale and lease back transaction ended up being a five-page fee letter. You know, so it's not what we anticipated, but um that that's the important thing. It's having the flexibility and and the willingness to adapt. You're not this isn't the road you're on isn't necessarily the road you'll stay on, and just appreciating that.
SPEAKER_00So it sounds like I say a typical type of person, not even necessarily a lawyer, a typical type of person is suitable for this this type of work. And as you mentioned before, people who have worked in banks, in family offices, in deal teams, hopefully as lawyers. I mean, do you do you hire non-lawyers and then train them or not?
SPEAKER_01So um at the very junior um level we do, and that's because there are um ways that you can then be qualified without having a a law degree now. I think it's called SQE. Yes, SQE. Um so we we do, it's not something we do every day of the week, yeah. Um, but it it is something that that we do. Nice.
SPEAKER_00And in terms of the market then, I mean, what's what are your clients concerned about? I know you mentioned there's a bit of variety in terms of who they are and where they come from, but are there some key news stories, geopolitical issues? I mean, what what do they care about at the minute? What do they come to you with?
SPEAKER_01Um Well, I I guess the only way I can kind of see that is in what work we're doing at the moment. And at the moment there are large swathes of um US investors looking to invest in UK healthcare, be that hospitals, be that care homes, be that clinics and the like. And um, from what I understand, the rationale is that is that those US investors see the strain that the NHS is under, and it's and the lack of because of a lack of investment over many years, and that the only way out of it really is to rely on private companies providing a solution. Yeah. And you know, if you look at the cost of per bed uh for someone in the uh in a hospital bed uh it's gonna be in the thousands, whereas um they and and often people don't need to be in a hospital bed. What they need is something in between hospital and home. And that's not really something we have. You know, you have nurses go into uh houses to look after people, that's not quite the same. And so a lot of clients are investing in care homes, but not just elderly care, but you know, anyone that needs an element of care and local authorities will often um uh be make up 50% of the occupancy. So it seems like there's a lot of investment into healthcare at the moment. Um, there was a period where people were thinking that offices um in terms of London had hit rock bottom. I think they probably have, but the the issue is that no one really wants to crystallise a loss. So people don't want to sell, lenders don't want to enforce, and buyers are frustrated because the asking prices are well above really what they should be. Yeah, um and then uh other than that, um the other area that seems to be of interest is um is actually retail. So a little bit like offices, I mean retail plummeted during COVID and shortly after. And but I think people have started to realise that actually a big shiny shopping centre in the central business district of a secondary city is probably still a good investment, particularly if it's got a car park, and a lot of people are repurposing some of these um retail assets, not just not entirely away from retail, but increasing the size of the car park, expanding the FB um uh offering there, exactly, and also putting in e-gaming into certain parts. So if you've got a husband, dad drop off, husband drop-off, yeah, yeah. Husband kids drop off, off you go. You know, it's not like um, but it's not like those kind of like sleazy grotty arcades that you used to see back in the day. It's like you know, 50 people on Call of Duty, yeah, yeah, all playing each other. It's far more sophisticated now. Um, and actually, I was in Riyadh uh end of last year, and they've heavily invested in that sort of stuff. Yeah, and um I walked through and it was just like another world. But on a much smaller scale, some um retail owners are starting to put that into some of the vacant space. You know, if you've got a a basement that's not particularly attractive, well, if the lights are going to be dark anyway, paint the walls black, yeah, stick a load of e-gaming stuff in there, some solar panels on the roof, happy days. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean this this takes me back to my commercial real estate paralegal days, but I seem to remember that the high street was dying, but yeah, I think it's class E. I can't remember now. Yeah, you could change the use case though. Out-of-town retail, for example, a big discount shopping, uh big discount uh grocers, what they called supermarket, yeah, with a car park was doing really well, but high street was dying.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's true, and it's it's it's an industry which is never gonna go back to the way it was. Yeah, um, but uh I don't think you know retail is definitely not dead. I mean, you'll know it's all very well browsing online for something, but put it this way, I didn't get my wife's engagement ring online, right? You might have a quick look, get an idea as to what's going on, but you're gonna go into the shop and get it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01So there are certain things that I think you just clothes, I think is another one, you know, fashion. Yeah, a lot a lot of um retailers now, it seems, will charge you to send things back. Yeah. I bought something from Flannels the other day, I had to return it twice. Yeah, and that those two returns in aggregate cost 25 quid. Yeah. No, I'll go into the shop.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right. So um it's it's it's retail is definitely going to come back at some point. It just won't be the same as what it was before. And I think investors are uh have cottoned onto that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I I think people, I think people want to, particularly in a like the the middle island aldi, or sorry, the middle aisle in a very famous supermarket. There are there are you know, people love it because people want to go in there, they want to find deal. Yeah, yeah, everyone likes a deal. Yeah, the old curiosity curiosity shop or whatever it is, like people want uh people want that kind of thing. So yeah, very interesting times ahead. That's all we've got time for today. Thanks uh very much for joining me.
SPEAKER_01Pleasure, no, thank you for having me.