NEW YORK – Bill Ackman, part of a group of investors that brought General Growth Properties Inc. out of bankruptcy last year, said he is holding a short position in shares of rival mall owner Simon Property Group Inc.
General Growth Properties Inc. is the parent company of Providence Place.
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The bet that Simon shares will decline is “not because it’s a bad company,” Ackman said in an interview on Thursday at a conference hosted by New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate. “It’s a hedge” against his General Growth holdings, he said.
Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management LP was among investors that committed more than $8 billion to General Growth in a restructuring of the second-biggest U.S. mall owner. The group prevailed in a takeover battle with Indianapolis-based Simon, which had attempted to buy its smaller competitor.
Pershing owned about 70 million shares of Chicago-based General Growth as of Dec. 31, equal to about a 7.3 percent stake, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
General Growth spun off Howard Hughes Corp., a property owner and developer of master-planned communities, as part of the bankruptcy exit in November. Ackman is chairman of the Dallas-based company and owns about 3.6 million shares.
Simon fell 95 cents, or 0.9 percent, to $106.37 as of 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading on Thursday. General Growth declined 24 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $15.07.
Short sellers profit from a decline in share prices by selling borrowed securities and later replacing them with shares bought at lower levels.
