Mills Corporation


The Mills Corporation was a publicly-traded real estate investment trust headquartered in Chevy Chase, Maryland, that developed and operated super-regional shopping malls. Mills-developed malls were typically built as large, single-floor facilities with a mixture of off-price retail and entertainment offerings. The company also had a sizeable portfolio of acquired properties, which tended to be smaller in scale.
On April 3, 2007, following a bankruptcy, the company was acquired by an investment group composed of Simon Property Group and Farallon Capital Management. At the time of the acquisition, the company operated 36 malls across the United States, 15 of which it had developed. Simon assumed management of the former Mills properties after the acquisition.
WWW Official Site

Company history

The company started in 1967 as the Western Development Corporation, and its first mall was Potomac Mills in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area in 1985. Then from 1989 to 1991, Franklin, Sawgrass, & Gurnee Mills opened each of those years, respectively. In 1994 the company converted to Real Estate Investment Trust status and changed its name to "The Mills Corporation".
In 1996, with new CEO Lawrence Siegel, The Mills built Ontario Mills near Los Angeles, which was the company's first mall built abstractly and with a full oval racetrack design which followed into the rest of the company's built malls. Since opening Ontario Mills until 2005 with Pittsburgh Mills, The Mills built and opened at least one or two landmark malls each year.
In 2001, The Mills sold naming rights to its new mall in Metro Atlanta to Discover Card; the mall opened in 2001 as Discover Mills. This was the first instance of a mall selling its own naming rights.
In 2002, The Mills acquired six regular retail malls including the ailing Forest Fair Mall and a nine mall portfolio in 2004, including former Taubman Centers, like Columbus City Center in order to redevelop and expanded to be more affordable centers. Also, the company also expanded to Europe with the opening of Madrid Xanadú in Spain.
The success of Madrid Xanadú prompted The Mills to embark on the $1 billion+ Meadowlands Xanadu complex in 2004, which was first planned as "Meadowlands Mills", but the project has caused numerous delays and cost the company financially. It was eventually sold to another developer, who planned it as American Dream Meadowlands.
In November 2004, Vaughan Mills was the first Mills Landmark built in Canada, and continued its international success with the acquisition of the St. Enoch Centre in Scotland and was offered to build a center in Rome, Italy.
After their last built mall was opened, Galleria at Pittsburgh Mills in July 2005, the company was investigated by the Securities & Exchange Commission for its financial problems.

Acquisition by Simon Property Group

On January 17, 2007, the Mills Corporation agreed to a buyout from Brookfield Asset Management, based out of Toronto. The deal was valued at US$1.35 billion. The company was forced to seek help after a possible management misconduct resulted in a $350 million accounting error. Brookfield would have paid $21 for each share of Mills Corporation. However, on February 13, 2007, Mills announced that their board had determined that a competing offer from Simon Property Group of Indianapolis, Indiana was superior to the Brookfield offer. Brookfield had the option to submit a counter offer, but on February 16, 2007, Simon Property Group and Farallon Capital agreed to acquire Mills for $25.25 per common share.
On April 6, 2007, Farallon and Simon completed the acquisition of Mills. All former Mills malls became Simon properties at the acquisition date and are now shown on Simon's website. The Mills became Simon's fifth retail platform, along with Regional Malls and Chelsea Premium Outlets. The new platform is known as The Mills: A Simon Company.

Former Mills properties

Properties marked with an asterisk were sold prior to The Mills's acquisition by Simon Property Group.

Developed by Mills

Acquisitions

Planned