Drawing WALE so a single tenant cannot hide
Asset managers in England still bring WALE to the investment committee as a single number of years. That figure is honest as arithmetic and often misleading as a picture of risk. If one logistics covenant holds a third of the passing rent, the average unexpired term can look long while the fund is, in practice, waiting on one credit team.
When Toolkitcraftcore draws a WALE plate we refuse a single bar unless the brief insists. The usual treatment is a stacked bar by remaining term bands — under twelve months, one to three years, three to seven, beyond seven — and a second small bar that isolates the largest three covenants. Directors then see whether the ‘long WALE’ is a park of independent occupiers or a warehouse let to one name.
The source is the tenancy schedule, not a memory of who occupies the yard. Break options that are tenant-only and in the money belong in the short band, even if the contractual expiry is distant. We label those breaks in a footnote rather than burying them in an appendix nobody reads in the room.
Colour is kept to three greys and one copper mark for the dominant covenant. Extra hues tempt the draughtsperson to encode sector as well as term, which turns the plate into a puzzle. Sector mix belongs on its own page, beside lot count, so the chair is not asked to decode two stories at once.
If your schedule still lists historic occupiers against units that have been dark for two quarters, say so before we draw. A WALE that includes empty space as if it were let will be caught in the room, and the rest of the pack will be treated with the same suspicion.