Simon CEO: General Growth rival plan is uncertain
The chief executive of Simon Property Group Inc
Simon, the largest U.S. mall owner, last month offered to buy General Growth, the second-largest, for $10 billion in a plan that had support from many General Growth unsecured creditors.
But General Growth on Monday set forth a competing plan to emerge from bankruptcy, under which William Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management and fund manager Fairholme Capital Management would invest up to $3.93 billion.
That plan has backing from Canada's Brookfield Asset Management Inc
General Growth had earlier proposed to split in two companies, in a plan under which Brookfield would have invested roughly $2.63 billion in exchange for a 30 percent stake.
That plan also called for General Growth to sell about $1 billion of assets and raise $3.3 billion of equity.
David Simon, the chief executive of Simon Property, on Thursday said the revised plan retains potential pitfalls for General Growth shareholders.
The first plan had a lot of uncertainty to it, in terms of how it was going to impact shareholders, Simon said at a New York University conference. Their added plan eliminates some uncertainty, but not all of it.
The case is In re: General Growth Properties Inc, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 09-11977.
(Reporting by Paritosh Bansal, Ilaina Jonas and Jonathan Stempel, editing by Dave Zimmerman)
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