CEO Strategic Leadership Series
Financial Services
Commercial real estate (CRE) across North America is undergoing its largest structural reset since the 1990s. Office vacancies in major US metros exceed 20–30 percent. Canadian markets like Toronto, Calgary, and Ottawa face rising sublease volume and declining absorption.
Yet many banks continue to underwrite CRE risk as if the market will revert to pre-2020 norms.
The reality:
• Hybrid work is permanent in knowledge-economy sectors
• Office demand will not return to pre-2020 baselines
• Retail real estate is bifurcating between value and experience
• Industrial real estate remains strong but increasingly expensive
• Refinancing cliffs in 2025–2028 will expose weak assets
• Cap rate decompression has only begun
Banks face a portfolio-level risk: CRE exposure tied to outdated valuations and unrealistic rent-growth assumptions.
This is not a cyclical correction — it is a structural repricing.
Banks must implement forward-looking repricing models, scenario tests, and tenant-mix analytics. They must also rethink CRE concentration limits, covenant structures, and geographic exposure.
How Arcus Can Help
Arcus conducts CRE vulnerability modelling, portfolio stress tests, and market-structure foresight to help institutions recalibrate lending strategies.
Next step: Engage Arcus for a CRE Structural Risk Map for your commercial portfolio.
Arcus offers clients a unique combination of fact-based industry knowledge and superior functional expertise. Our consultants have an average of over 22 years experience, twice the industry average. Find out more about our growth, change management and operations services.
At Arcus we believe that a strategy is only as good as the results it delivers. Strategic outcomes are most predictable and effective when companies develop a portfolio of initiatives that are aligned with core competencies and aligned activities enable the company to offer a superior value proposition.
Please contact Arcus for case studies and to discuss how we can help you.
Service coverage
The variety, breadth, and depth of the projects where Arcus can be a resource are made unique by each client’s specific needs. By providing a very small sample of projects we’ve completed, we can help you understand how and when to use our services. Visit the links below to find out more about a specific problem or opportunity you would like to address.
Below is a sample of the range of services that Arcus has provided to clients.
- A survey of 2,350 consumers and 1,320 business leaders for feedback on sustainability trends
- Architecting a multi-year change strategy for a Fortune 500 company
- Mentoring a CEO on organizational change
- Excellence transformation of a leading B2B services company
- Creating a new sales deployment model for a healthcare company
- Developing a position evaluation and compensation model for a professional medical association
- Improving services to customer segments by deepening their understanding of customer attitudes
“Arcus manages to consistently deliver tangible results on market research and strategy projects. They combine deep business expertise, powerful research capabilities, and innovative thinking to deliver substantial value.”
– Vice President, Nikon
Data Dashboards
- Empower your decision-making with comprehensive, trusted data.
- Gain actionable insights with access to real-time Canadian consumer, business and sector spending and location data.
- Inform economic policy, investments, sales deployment and strategic plans by looking at trends across different industries and regions in Canada.
- Influence your businesses’ future growth plans by understanding consumer behaviour
Media Coverage
Arcus has been quoted extensively in media on a range of topics and can offer research studies, insights and ideas. Here are some examples from the Globe and Mail, BNN, CTV, Global TV and others.
- Federal budget – Canada’s GDP and Canadian businesses – BNN
- Economies are on different tracks: USMCA renegotiations – BNN
- Klarna on the evolution of digital payment tech – BNN
- Canada’s retail sector round up – BNN
- Buy now, pay later will become a $950M industry in Canada – BNN
- Nordstrom countdown to opening begins – Toronto Star
- No lineups outside stores in five years – BNN
- Black Friday retail, marketing, and cross-border shopping trends – BNN
- Does global expansion need a local flavour? – Globe and Mail
- Art of the Pitch – Protect company’s interests when approaching giants – Globe and Mail
- Off-the-shelf technology or a custom design? – Globe and Mail