If they sell it and take a massive loss, they'll take a big hit on the balance sheet. So, they want to hang on to it until times are better. But, people will criticize the company for hanging onto unused real estate if nobody shows up. So now the company wants to show people in the office.
I'm not sure that this is true, but it's the only realistic way I can see CRE holdings driving returns to the office
Literally news from yesterday: Three compies conpired to impersonate millions of voters to influence federal policy
How many times do companies have to conspire to commit fraud before people stop claiming conspiracy and corporate fraud never happens??
There's no need for a "conspiracy theory" to explain it. The better way to look at it is:
Some VP at Dell leased X million sqft of office space on a long term lease that does not expire until the year 2030 (thereby getting a good deal and locking in a lower rent until that time) sometime before the pandemic flipped things to "WFH".
Now, post pandemic, with most employees in WFH status, Dell, the company, is paying $Y million/month for X million sqft of office space, which is going unused -- and they can't get out of their 2030 leases early without taking an even bigger loss. So from Dell executive's viewpoint's, this is office rent going to waste, so if it is going to be paid for anyway, we might as well force employees back to the office so we don't have to report the rental costs as pure losses on our quarterly reports to the SEC.
About the only bit of this I buy to some extent is very senior managers who've been closely involved in building out new office space only to find it's empty.