> Resale value is way too forward thinking for a corporation these days, it's all about short term profit
This is a commonly repeated trope that is just wrong. Corporations are very forward looking. Consider the price earnings ratio of the S&P500. It's been on a general upward trend since the 80s, only disrupted by recessions and stock market crashes [0]. That means stock holders are willing to invest more money for future earnings. Discount rates are also very low historically which means future earnings are discounted at a lower rate.
Similarly the number of companies that earn no profit is very high:
> Of the largest 1,500 companies by market capitalization today, around 200 weren’t profitable during any of the last three years. But instead of punishing them, investors have rewarded them with a total market value of more than $2.3 trillion. Wall Street hasn’t been willing to attach such high market values to unprofitable companies since the late 1990s (and even then, the total market valuation of the unprofitable companies wasn’t even half of what it is now). [1]
Private R&D spending is also on an upward trend since the 50s as a percentage of GDP, displacing much of federal spending in R&D. [2]
Everywhere you look you'll see long term thinking is rewarded. The only place you hear complaints about "short term profit" is corporate managers that want cover for bad results. They can always say they're "investing for the future" and their investments will take a decade to pan out, but conveniently they won't be around by then.
I doubt you can find any Excel valuation template that's used in business school that does not include resale value. You can bet the people in charge of purchasing McDonald's real estate look very closely at resale value.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclically_adjusted_price-to-e...
[1] https://money.com/stock-market-companies-no-profits/
[2] https://cglife.com/blog/recent-trends-in-rd-spending-the-lan...