After a "trough" in 2020, the sale leaseback market has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels and in 2021 approached the "massive activity" of 2019, according to SLB Capital Advisors.

"For the full year, sale leasebacks generated a total of $24.3 billion compared to $12.7 billion in 2020 and 27.5 billion in 2019," the report stated. The amount of activity nearly doubled between 2020 and 2021. Most deals last year were in the $5 million to $25 million range. However, 16 deals had valuations of more than $100 million. Some of the larger deals in the fourth quarter were "Gaming & Leisure Properties' acquisition of the Cordish Companies' Live! Property for $1.1 bn and Medical Property Trust's acquisition of 18 health care locations from Springstone for $795mm."

The number of deals in 2019 and 2021 were almost identical: 795 and 790, respectively. The most activity was in the west and northeast