A Practitioner's Guide to Business Plans, Leases, Capital and the Decisions That Move Value
Julian R. Sterling
The five Excel workbooks that go with the book, corrected where they were wrong: the three appendices turned into
working documents, the two calculations the book returns to most often and never prints in full, and a fifth that costs
the one chapter with no figures in it. Around them: four of the same models with the inputs emptied, thirteen working
documents to print, forty questions that mark themselves, and three cases the book names and never takes to a number.
Every number is a live formula. Nothing is locked, protected or watermarked.
Free to download. No sign-up, no email address, nothing to fill in.
Twelve workbooks, the printable documents and the read-me. Each group below can also be
downloaded on its own. Last revised 23 September 2026.
The five workbooks
These carry the book’s own figures, so that every number it prints can be traced to a live
formula. Each now closes on a checks sheet.
Download these five124 KB
Appendix A
Asset business plan
The plan as a working file: the narrative sections, a rent roll that computes the
occupational position — passing rent, ERV, reversion, occupancy by area and by rent,
WAULT, WAULB, the expiry and break profile, the concentration tests — a ten-year
projection to exit, and the base, downside and break-even page. Two rules are enforced
rather than suggested: contracted and speculative income never share a column, and the
purchase price appears nowhere. Every return is computed on today's net realisable
value. Revised: the expiry profile no longer puts a whole-year expiry one year late,
occupancy by rent is the ERV of let space over total ERV (80.6 per cent on the example, not
75.6), and the break-even exit yield is computed: 6.02 per cent against 5.50 assumed.
The three options projected on identical assumptions from the same net realisable value,
with the forward return on each, then the interrogation questions and the sale preparation
checklist. The second sheet is the worked illustration of Chapter 6, live: the book
calls the forward return "comfortably positive but modest" and says that half a
point of exit yield "may drop it below the fund's cost of capital", without
printing either rate. They are 7.13% and 4.33% (4.56% on the other reading of the
book’s 108, with no exit costs). Both are below a 7% cost of capital.
The vacancy decision, quantified. Net effective rent for up to three packages; the
accept-or-wait arithmetic with every line of the holding cost; the two-offers example of
Chapter 8 as a live comparison; and the strategic vacancy record. It returns the two
numbers that end most arguments — the months of extra vacancy at which waiting breaks
even, and the rent you would have to achieve for waiting to have been worth
it: on the pre-filled example, 3.1 months and 105.18 (the first version said 104.75, forgetting
that the rent lost while waiting rises with the rent you are waiting for).
The one-page dashboard, then arrears by occupier, the leasing pipeline with rejected
offers and their reasons, service charge against budget by line with the recovery
shortfall decomposed, capital with contingency reported separately, and a compliance
register that computes its own status against the reporting date. The recovery shortfall now
carries all four causes of Chapter 11, including the apportionment shortfall the first
version left out. It arrives empty: it is the month’s document.
Chapter 13 is called The Cost of Doing Nothing. It says the value of the chapter is
entirely in the comparison between doing the work in a void and doing it under a deadline —
and then does not make the comparison. There is not a figure in it. This file makes it, on the
chapter’s own building, with the deadline left in the abstract exactly as the book leaves it.
Doing nothing costs 4,770,000 in present value — one and a half times the
price of the work that avoids it. And the damage falls mostly on the exit, not on the rent:
4,036,000 of value forgone at sale against 3,131,000 of rent never earned. Which is the
chapter’s opening claim proved rather than asserted — building performance is a
valuation problem, and the arithmetic says so before the valuer does.
Planning the work into the year-three void is worth 1,302,000. The chapter calls
this the single largest cost saving available. It is the largest; it is not mostly a cost saving.
Only 613,000 of it is the cheaper contract. The other 689,000 is income — which means an
asset manager who defends early planning on the contractor’s price is understating their own
case by more than half, on the one ground a cost consultant is qualified to dispute.
And the cheaper technical route turns out to be the expensive one. The plant package saves
1,400,000 and loses by 448,000, because a buyer inheriting plant with six years of life left
deducts 1,479,000 to replace it (corrected: the first file started the plant’s life a year
before it is paid for, and the book says two years). Durability is the book’s word for this; a deduction is the
buyer’s, and only one of the two appears in a price.
Twenty-five checks, and a sensitivity sheet for the assumptions you will want to argue with:
across 275 basis points of exit yield the cost of doing nothing runs from 3.3 to 6.0 million,
not the 3.7 to 5.6 the book prints. Two
conclusions survive all of them: do the work, and do it in the void.
Four of the workbooks with every input emptied. The checks sheets count what is still missing and test what holds for any inputs.
Appendices A, B and F · Chapters 6 and 8
Your rent roll, your hold, your offer, your building
The business plan, the hold-refurbish-sell comparison, the accept-or-hold-out arithmetic and the cost of doing nothing, with the same formulas and every blue cell emptied. The sensitivity steps stay. The monthly dashboard already arrives empty, so it has no blank twin.
The book’s inputs are listed in a text file inside the archive. Type them back in and the book’s figures come back with them: 7.13 per cent on Chapter 6, 4,770,279 for doing nothing, 1,301,868 for the void.
Thirteen pages to print and use. A4, with margins wide enough for US Letter.
Chapters 2 to 17 · Appendices A to C
Thirteen working documents
The acquisition case interrogated, with the handover meeting and the minimum document set. The first ninety days and the list of what you do not know. The delegation schedule, per project with who decides, who is consulted and who is informed. The six-part committee paper. The business plan on one page. The rent roll as a document of record, with the expiry and break profile. The hold underwrite and its break-evens. Budget, reforecast and variance. Accept or hold out. The lease the valuer will reward and the occupier behind it. Recovery, the property manager and the compliance register. Capital, building performance and repositioning. And hold, refurbish or sell with the quarterly report.
A workbook that marks itself. Answer in the yellow cells; the marking fills in as you go.
All parts of the book
Forty questions on the book
Seven on the role, the plan and the rent roll, seven on the hold and the budget, seven on leasing, the lease and the occupier, seven on costs, capital and Appendix F, six from repositioning to the career, and six on the three cases below. Numbers are marked to a tolerance, multiple choice to the letter, and the score sheet counts your errors part by part: that is your revision list.
Nothing is hidden. The marking sheet holds every answer, every tolerance, and the reason for each answer.
New material, not a restatement. Three situations the chapters name and never take to a number. Each case is one workbook: the note is the first sheet, the model is the rest, and a checks sheet closes it. Type your own figures in and every finding recomputes.
Chapter 14 · Case one
A good project for a different kind of owner
The 1980s office worth 100, converted for 60 over two and a half years. As planned it returns 17.47 per cent; with the chapter’s six-month delay and five per cent overrun, 13.51, below the 15 per cent a developer needs (ADDED). A developer pays 106.59 today, above the office value as the chapter says; at the fund’s 7 per cent the same project looks worth 32 more, which is the headline return the chapter warns about. Selling hands the buyer 11.3 of stress.
Chapter 11 · Case two
The eighty-one per cent, capitalised
The chapter’s 81 per cent recovery rate, decomposed into 9, 5, 2 and 3 points and valued. On 800,000 of service charge at a 6.25 per cent yield (ADDED), the ten structural points are worth 1,280,000. The two unindexed caps imply cost inflation of 3.09 per cent a year and widen to 8.4 points in five: 86,441 of drift before any lease event. A point of recovery is worth 0.32 of a point of rent: pound for pound the same, point for point not.
Chapter 17 · Case three
Sedge Park in June
The offer at 8 per cent below the previous rent. The chapter’s arithmetic holds for any holding cost above 6.7 per cent of the rent a year. Like for like and discounted, accepting is worth 30.3 more, and declining would need a re-letting 5.4 per cent above the old rent. The larger money was the break: moved to year six with twelve months notice and a penalty, it is worth 20.9 at a 40 per cent chance of exercise (ADDED), more than the rent discount for two and a half years.
the last sheet of every workbook: each control states its own verdict, and the file ends ALL OK
ADDED
a figure the book does not give, used in the cases and marked wherever it appears
Why the arrears sheet has that extra column
It carries the average days late over the last four quarters, beside a flag for a changed
payment pattern. That column is the point of the whole format. The February finding in
Chapter 17 — an occupier at 8% of building income moving from paying on the due date
to paying eighteen days late for a third consecutive quarter — is visible there, and
invisible in any aggregate arrears figure.
Nothing else was wrong. The accounts on file were eight months old and sound. Early
information is worth a great deal, and it only arrives if something is looking for it.
Reader list
Optional. One email when a companion file is corrected or a new worked case goes up, and a short note when a new book comes out. Nothing on this page needs it.
The workbooks open in Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice Calc, Google Sheets and Numbers; the PDF
prints on A4 or US Letter. They use no macros and no add-ins, so nothing needs to be enabled or trusted. If your spreadsheet asks
to update links on opening, decline — there are none.
What changed, and when
23 Sep 2026
The five workbooks corrected and given checks sheets. Appendix F’s plant has six years of life left at exit, not two: the buyer deducts 1,479,000 and fabric wins by 448,000, not 1,590,000 and 501,000. The cost of doing nothing across the yield range runs from 3.3 to 6.0 million, not 3.7 to 5.6. The break-even rent for waiting is 105.18, not 104.75. The rent roll’s expiry profile and occupancy by rent corrected. Added: a blank set, thirteen working documents, forty questions that mark themselves, and three cases.
Closing the DealTwo defensible bridges 20.70 million apart, a peg worth 7.00 million, and the six choices that remove 6.60 of a 12.00 earn-out.
CMBS and CRE CLOsWhere the loss actually lands, from appraisal reduction to realised severity, and what the B-piece is really being paid for.
How to Read a Commercial LeaseThe three refinements chapter 19 names and never performs, and the renewal rate below which the mark-to-market is worth nothing.
How to Read a Credit AgreementWhere the default actually comes from, the cure that costs 5.5 times the other, and the capacity nobody adds up.
How to Read a Real Estate Loan AgreementThe cure ratio in closed form, the four-point window in which the cheap cure works, and the cure sized to the wrong threshold.
Office Real EstateA six per cent yield that returns 3.2 per cent once the re-letting cycle is paid for, and the headline-to-net-effective rent arithmetic.
Private Equity Real EstateBoth worked waterfalls to the dollar, the two capital stacks, and the arithmetic of the promote made changeable.
Private Markets PerformanceThirty-one of the thirty-three figures chapter 19 publishes reproduce exactly — and the two that do not are named rather than quietly adopted.
Raising a Real Estate FundThe chapter 17 funnel run on a calendar — when the first close actually lands, and why more travel does not help.
Real Estate FinanceFour people look at one building and reach four numbers; the lender is whole only above 105,109,489, twelve per cent below today’s value rather than forty.
Real Estate Financial ModelingProperty, development and fund models built line by line, and the modelling test worked end to end.
Real Estate Fund ManagementThe waterfall of 6.11, the build-to-core of 8.7 and the proceeds gap, reproduced as live formulas rather than asserted.
REIT Analysis and ValuationFFO of 532.0, AFFO of 381.0, net asset value and dividend safety — every figure a formula you can change.
Retail Real EstateThe occupancy cost of every unit in a centre, the sixteen per cent of the rent roll no tenant can sustain, and the right-size-convert-or-hold decision priced.
Sale and LeasebackA €179.5 million transaction end to end, with rent cover measured on the entity that actually signs the lease.
Self-Storage Real EstateThe cohort engine behind a 590-unit store, and the rate increase on existing customers priced against the move-outs it causes.
The Fund Finance ProfessionalChapter 8 builds the reported-to-eligible NAV bridge; chapter 9 computes every ratio without it. Two points at every state — and what a subscription line does to the IRR.
The Growth Equity InvestorWhat a pro rata cheque really costs, and the band where defending your ownership loses money.
The Private Credit InvestorThe two coverage ratios are not measured on the same thing: the erosion is 47.7 per cent, not the 28.7 the headline implies.
The Private Equity Fund Controller PlaybookThe book defines IRR, DPI, RVPI and TVPI, tells you to update them at the exit, and prints not one value. Computed: a 1.833× deal inside a fund at 0.892 TVPI.
The Venture Capital AssociateWhat defending a position costs, and how many companies a reserve pool actually defends.
Financial Risk ManagementA fund inside every limit that cannot meet a redemption — and the number that decides it is the one with no currency attached.
Business ValuationThree advisers land 26.8 per cent apart on one company, and the whole gap turns out to be 1.96 points of perpetual growth.
Quantitative FinanceThree models agree to a quarter of one per cent about a number that one unobservable input moves a hundred and three times as much.
Asset ManagementFour people quote four returns for one mandate, all correct and 2.7017 points apart — forty-eight times the manager’s net skill.
Alternative InvestmentsA manager reports 13.29 per cent and the endowment earns 6.26 — both correct, and only a third of the advertised advantage arrives.
Credit AnalysisFour defensible EBITDAs on one borrower give leverage from 3.19x to 6.47x — and the add-back argument is fifty times the covenant headroom.
Venture CapitalOne company out of twenty-eight returns 56.7 per cent of the fund, and half the capital goes in after the decision — at half the return.
Machine Learning for FinanceFive people quote the accuracy of one credit model, all five are right, and the number that decides how much money it makes is none of them.
Commercial Real Estate InvestingThe equity earned 8.6647 per cent and the investor received exactly 8.0000 — the preferred return, and nothing above it.
Mergers and AcquisitionsThe board paper says the deal creates 13,436,667 of value. The arithmetic says it destroys 17,530,855. Nobody is lying.
DerivativesThe treasury report says the hedge cost 1,233,698. That is the interest differential, not a cost.
Treasury ManagementFive cash balances for one company, all correct and 145,600,000 apart — and the revolver that is two-thirds of the liquidity leaves at a revenue fall of 8.4127 per cent.
Financial Planning and AnalysisRevenue 3.0190 per cent above budget and operating profit 16.3209 per cent below it, in the same quarter, with every figure correctly stated.
Energy TradingA position report that is 91.7031 per cent hedged and correctly computed, on a book that is short 2,542,000 MWh — and a margin call of 198,400,000 the next morning.
Construction Cost ControlA contract sum of 26,301,102 became a final account of 29,153,363 on the building that was drawn — and 85.8 per cent of what was lost was knowable on the day it was signed.
Trade FinanceSix routes to payment on one 4,200,000 export order cost between 178,040 and 223,268, a spread worth 14.8 per cent of the margin, and a day of buyer credit costs 1,031.76.
Cost AccountingOne factory costed twice on the same 13,440,000 of overhead, and 4,053,091 moves between four product families.
Pricing StrategyA list price of 148.00, a pocket price of 112.51, and the nine deductions in between — with what one point of price is actually worth.
Contract ManagementA bid 5.50 a unit cheaper, signed on paper worth 9.81 a unit more — and 94.68 per cent of it was knowable on the day of signature.
Capital MarketsFour defensible readings of one bond, the cost of an issue under each convention, and the placement discount computed at a constant discount.
Financial RegulationThree ratios pass and the fourth is in breach by 1,956.0 million: the output floor, the liquidity buffer after encumbrance, and the loan split.
Bank ManagementFour defensible readings of one balance sheet, the deposit beta measured two ways, and the liquidity that lasts 3.9 days.
The Real Estate WorkoutFour ways out of one broken loan, discounted to today, and the 58.7 cents at which a payoff beats enforcement.
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