General Growth Properties Inc., the parent company of Providence Place planning to exit bankruptcy next month, is close to hiring Vornado Realty Trust’s Sandeep Mathrani as CEO, said a person with knowledge of the talks.
General Growth has reached a conceptual agreement with Mathrani, and contract details will be worked out over the weekend, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. The hiring may be announced by the middle of next week, the person said. Mathrani is executive vice president of retail real estate at New York-based Vornado.
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“He has the resume to do this,” said Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of retail leasing, marketing and sales for Manhattan-based Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate. Mathrani is “very well-versed in the shopping center business,” said Consolo, who worked with him before he joined Vornado in 2002.
David Keating, a spokesman for the company, and Roanne Kulakoff, a spokeswoman for Vornado, both declined to comment.
General Growth won court approval Thursday for the last stage of its restructuring, a year and a half after filing the biggest real estate bankruptcy in U.S. history. The Chicago-based company filed for bankruptcy after it was unable to refinance debt because of the financial crisis and the collapse of the commercial mortgage-backed securities market.
Metz Replaced Bucksbaum
Adam Metz has been General Growth’s CEO since October 2008, when he replaced John Bucksbaum, a member of the company’s founding family. Metz and Thomas Nolan, president and chief operating officer, agreed last month to stay in their positions for as long as a year after the restructuring while the company searches for a new management team.
General Growth, the second-biggest U.S. shopping-mall owner, has stakes in 185 retail centers in 43 states and plans to focus on its stable income-producing malls after it restructures. It’s spinning off a land development and housing unit called Howard Hughes Corp.
Pershing Square Capital Management LP, Fairholme Capital Management LLC and Brookfield Asset Management Inc. teamed up to bring General Growth out of bankruptcy, defeating a takeover bid by bigger mall owner Simon Property Group Inc. General Growth plans to leave bankruptcy on or around Nov. 8.
The talks with Mathrani were reported earlier Friday by the Wall Street Journal.
