Professionals

James B. Matthews

Jim Matthews has more than 25 years of experience in national real estate consulting specializing in the disposition of excess and underutilized corporate properties. His specialty is the swift disposition of excess space through the best available method: sales, auctions, leases, subleases, assignments, termination, buy-outs or sale/leasebacks. Mr. Matthews also provides real estate valuations and assessments using his proprietary report methodology. Clients can count on his insightful recommendations regarding which locations will bring the fastest, most profitable disposition and what methods should be used to maximize returns. Clients call on him to conduct difficult negotiations with landlords for lease amendments, lease terminations and claims reductions. He also provides expert testimony regarding real estate values, uses, solutions and claims.

In the past 15 years, Mr. Matthews has consummated more than 3,500 deals, with more than $2 billion in savings for his clients. Those deals resulted in timely disposition of more than 40 million square feet of real estate. Stores ranged in size from 1,500 square feet to 130,000 square feet and warehouses ranged in size from 125,000 to 533,000 square feet. This process has raised millions for his clients from the sale of leases and real estate. Some of his assignments include:

• For a home flooring retailer, he sold 86 properties in 42 states in 45 days, raising 20% more than the appraised values.
• He assisted a client in bankruptcy by renegotiating more than 750 leases resulting in annual savings of more than $3 million.
• Within 12 months he raised nearly $4 million from the sale of truck maintenance facilities and storage lots in the south and southwest.

Prior to his work as a consultant, Mr. Matthews was Vice President and Counsel for Auburndale Management in Massachusetts. This real estate company controlled and managed more than $500 million worth of commercial real estate and acted as real estate consultant for McCrory/TG&Y Stores. He represented the various partnerships in the acquisition, financing and development of these locations and directed the development and implementation of a property management system to support these assets. In addition, he oversaw the disposition of the TG&Y Store leases nationwide and acquisition of new sites for McCrory Stores in Central United States. Prior to this, he was Corporate Counsel of King’s department stores during its bankruptcy proceedings.

Jim Matthews has had numerous articles published on issues relating to real estate and bankruptcy law. A partial list is available here. He is a regular speaker at professional educational events for the Strategic Research Institute, iiBIG, American Bankruptcy Institute, the International Management Network, Restaurant Finance and Development Conference, and the Turnaround Management Association.

Mr. Matthews has volunteered with the Rotary Club of Preston Center in Dallas, where he was President 1993-1994. Jim has provided years of service to the Turnaround Management Association: Dallas Chapter President 1995 and 2000, National Board Member 1995-2007, and VP-Chapter Relations 2001-2002; VP-Membership 2003, VP-Public Relations 2005-2006, Executive Committee 2001-2006. In addition, he was a founder of the TMAssist program and received TMA’s Outstanding Achievement Award in 2003.

He received his law degree from the University of Miami School of Law and his Bachelors Degree from Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts.