Stephen Ellis

Welcome.

Thank you very much for inviting me.

So when you lease a residential property, typically you would provide a deposit bond and that would stand behind the lease.

And then when you move out, you get that cash back.

Commercial leases are structured differently.

Really, you have a lease for a term.

It could

be five, 10 years, and you have that commitment for the full term.

And really, when the lease expires, the bank guarantee just terminates.

And you then go to your bank as a tenant and say, the bank guarantee is now finished, terminated, it's expired.

I'd like to have my cash back.

And that's a slightly different process to the way the residential market works.

Well, I think it's largely because of tradition.

Property's been around and property leases have been around for decades.

100 years plus.

And traditionally, landlords have sought security behind commercial leases, and that's always come in the form of bank guarantees.

And quite frankly, it's a very old-fashioned way of doing business.

It ties up, as you mentioned, tenants' capital, which they could otherwise put in their businesses.

So that is the problem that we've got currently.

And we're looking to solve that by issuing a lease bond, which requires...