We're not just underwriting a building. We're deciding who we're partnered with for two decades.
There's a version of the sale-leaseback business that's purely transactional: review the coverage math, confirm the real estate, close the deal, collect rent. Done in 45 days. Move to the next one.
That's not the business we're in.
When we close a sale-leaseback, we're beginning a 20-year relationship with an operator. We own the building their business depends on. They're responsible for the rent that drives our return. For two decades, we're structurally linked — through economic cycles, operational challenges, management transitions, and the ordinary unpredictability of running a business over a long period of time.
That's why we care about who we work with in ways that go beyond the numbers. The numbers are necessary. They're not sufficient.
The operators we work with best
After years of doing this — first at STORE Capital where I worked with hundreds of operators across categories, and now at Haven — I have a clear picture of the operator profile that produces the best 20-year outcomes.
They know their business deeply. Not just the top-line revenue — the unit economics. What drives margin at each location. Why location three runs thinner than locations one and two. What happened in the quarter EBITDA dropped and why it recovered. Operators who know their numbers at the unit level are operators who are managing their businesses actively, not just riding performance. That's who you want as a tenant for 20 years.
They have a growth orientation. The best sale-leaseback relationships are with operators who are building something. The capital from the SLB goes into the next location, or the next two, or the remodel program that positions the existing units for the next five years. The relationship becomes a capital partnership — we help fund their growth, they sustain a rent obligation that's comfortably within their earnings, and both sides benefit from the operator's continued expansion.
Operators who are stable but not growing are fine sale-leaseback tenants. Operators who are growing are the ones we invest the most time in.
They're direct. When something goes wrong in their business — a difficult quarter, a management change, a location that's underperforming — the operators we work with best tell us. Not because we require disclosure (the lease terms govern what they're obligated to share), but because they understand that a capital partner who knows what's happening can be a resource. A capital partner who discovers problems through quarterly reporting can only react.
The operators who call us when they're having a bad quarter — before the rent coverage math gets concerning — are the ones we go to the mat for when circumstances require it. The operators who go silent until there's a crisis are the ones we worry about.
They treat the relationship as long-term. This sounds obvious, but it's not universal. Some operators view the sale-leaseback as a transaction — they close, they take the capital, and they don't think much about Haven until the next lease renewal or a lease modification becomes necessary. That's fine. But the operators who treat us as a genuine capital partner — who call when they have development questions, who share their growth plans, who ask our view on market conditions — get more from the relationship than the operators who don't.
We have information that's useful to operators: market intelligence on cap rates, construction cost perspectives from our development practice, a view of what works and what doesn't across hundreds of deals. That knowledge is available to operators we know. It's not available to operators we closed a deal with three years ago and haven't spoken to since.
The operators we pass on — even when the numbers work
Operators who manage to the metric rather than to the business. We've seen operators who structure their financials to hit coverage thresholds while the underlying business is more complex than the numbers suggest. Not fraud — just presentation choices that show the number we need to see. We've gotten good at spotting the difference between a business that's genuinely performing and a P&L that's been optimized for presentation. The former we fund. The latter we pass.
Operators who are in the business to exit quickly. A 20-year lease is a serious commitment. An operator who is transparently planning to sell their business in 18 months shouldn't be entering a 20-year NNN lease — the structural mismatch creates problems at the business sale that make both the operator's exit and our position more complicated. We've had operators tell us they want to do the SLB specifically to increase the sale value of the business. That's legitimate — but we want to understand the timeline and the plan before we commit to two decades.
Operators who aren't curious about their own numbers. The "accountant handles that" response to unit economics questions is a flag. Not because we need the operator to be a financial expert — we have analysts for the detailed work. But an operator who doesn't understand their own unit economics is an operator who may not see trouble coming. That's a different risk profile than an operator who knows their numbers and can explain variance.
What the selection process looks like
We don't run a formal operator selection process with a scorecard and a committee review. The assessment happens in the first call and the subsequent conversations.
By the end of the first working session — the 45-60 minute deep dive where we look at actual financials together — I have a clear view of whether this is a relationship we want. It's not a feeling. It's the specific combination of: business model durability, coverage math, real estate quality, and — most importantly — whether I can see working with this person for 20 years.
I've passed on deals where the numbers were clean because the operator relationship didn't feel right. I've also moved forward on deals where the numbers required some work because the operator was exactly the kind of partner we want.
Both are the right decisions. The numbers are one input. The operator is the other.
Why this matters to you
If you're evaluating Haven as a capital partner, the selection process runs both ways. You're assessing whether we're the right buyer for your real estate and your business. We're assessing whether you're the right tenant for a 20-year relationship.
The operators who fit best are the ones who want that mutual assessment — who are as interested in whether Haven is the right partner as they are in the capital.
If that describes how you think about this, the first call is worth 15 minutes of your time.
Want to understand whether we'd be the right fit for each other? That's exactly what the first conversation is for.