1 Question Simon Property Group Needs to Answer

There's no question that retail landlords like Simon Property Group (NYSE: SPG) were happy to put 2020 behind them. There are still headwinds ahead, of course, because the coronavirus pandemic is still ongoing. But 2021 is likely to be a year of renewal as the vaccines now being disseminated help the world get back to some semblance of normal. That said, there's been a lot of damage done, leaving Simon with one very big question to answer.

Coming into 2020, the big story in the retail sector was the so-called "retail apocalypse." Some people viewed this as a shift among customers to online shopping, but that's too narrow a scope. It was a much bigger and slower-moving problem. Essentially, retailers fell behind the curve with regard to customer trends. That included the move toward online shopping, but also more mundane things like fashion shifts and the store experience. Retailers that weren't keeping up were struggling -- and those that had leveraged their balance sheets struggled even more.

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Source Fool.com