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Green Acres Mall owners reject buyout bid

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Simon Property Group, the company that owns the Roosevelt Field Mall, made a $23.2-billion offer on March 20 to purchase Macerich Co., which owns the Green Acres Mall.

The offer comes on the heels of Macerich’s rejection of Simon’s original $22.4-billion bid earlier this month. Macerich’s board of directors unanimously rejected that offer on March 17, saying the offer “substantially undervalues Macerich and is not in the best interests of Macerich and its stockholders” in a letter to David E. Simon, chairman and chief executive officer of Simon Property.

“After careful consideration, the Macerich board of directors unanimously determined that Simon Property Group proposal significantly undervalues Macerich and fails to reflect the full value of our portfolio of unique and irreplaceable assets,” said Arthur Coppola, chairman and chief executive officer of Macerich. “Over the past two years, we have transformed Macerich’s portfolio by selling lower quality malls to fund our highly value-accretive development pipeline…We believe that our continued focus on portfolio transformation, productivity enhancement and development opportunities will deliver industry-leading growth and significantly greater value to Macerich stockholders than Simon's proposal."

Coppola said his company also adopted a “poison pill” provision, designed to make it more difficult for Simon Property to pursue a hostile takeover. The provision alters the structure of their board of directors, dividing members into three classes and lengthening their terms in order to help ensure shareholders who do wish to sell to Simon Property do not have the power to sell the company.

In a statement following Macerich’s rejection, Simon said Macerich’s rejection was “based on a rosy future of their prospects,” and called the rejection and the poison pill an “extreme, scorched-earth response.”

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