Before the lease expires, there will be negotiations between the land owners and Harman to extend the lease. Both parties have a mutual interest in continuing the lease agreement, so to suggest Harman will be out of a home in eight years is disingenuous at best.
This is absolute speculation. Unless you're an insider (and, if you are, you're probably violating a nondisclosure agreement), you have no way of knowing what the interests of HARMAN and Argonaught Holdings Ltd. will be when the lease expires.
I know with absolute certainty that I don't know what will happen when HARMAN's 20-year lease ends. If Ilford products are still being offered eight years hence, my conservative tendency to be "over insured" will most likely lead me to fill a freezer with them. Others may agree, disagree, follow suit or ignore.
Why the paranoid speculation?
Paranoid? Nine years before the lease ends? More like reasoned analysis.
Yeap, there's no need for speculation or to be alarmist.
Alarmist? Nine years before the lease ends? More like thinking ahead.
If the redevelopment plan had gone through, Harman would have had to move equipment to the new facility. Much of the hassle and expense of the move would be related to disassembling, loading, unloading and reassembling the equipment. Once that is done, does it really matter much whether the equipment is moved to a nearby or distant destination. Harman has an long time to find a new home. Surely some other community in England would appreciate a new manufacturing facility.
The proposed site redevelopment plan had Argonaught Holdings Ltd., HARMAN's landlord, shouldering the cost of new facility construction as well as physical relocation of HARMAN's equipment. I
do speculate that it could afford to do that because profits from simultaneous residential unit sales would have subsidized those expenses. Other business estates, whether nearby or distant, have no such incentive should they seek to attract HARMAN at the end of its lease. HARMAN's relocation costs would also increase with every additional mile.
I find it highly unlikely that a facility manufacturing coated light sensitive products will ever be disassembled, moved any substantial distance and reassembled in the future, given current and reasonably anticipated market conditions. Unless government subsidies are offered, the cost is just too high. In my opinion, the best possible scenario for HARMAN is that sales and profits remain strong enough so that, when its lease runs out, it can afford negotiating an extension and continuing to incur the extra expenses of a facility far too large for its needs. Being someone who hopes for the best and plans for the worst, my prudence will motivate stocking up as 2025 approaches.