Chicago-based retail REIT General Growth Properties is battling to survive billions of dollars in maturing debt during a period of frozen credit markets by soliciting the sale of up to $2 billion in preferred shares to investors.About $1.2 billion in debt will mature in November with another $1.3 billion following in December, according to the company\u2019s second quarter financial report. All told, GGP\u2019s debt totals about $27 billion. The current GGP effort follows a suspension of dividend payments and the replacement of the company\u2019s CFO at the beginning of October. Following those actions, Fitch Ratings, Moody\u2019s Investor Services and Standard & Poor\u2019s cut the company\u2019s rating. In addition to preferred stock, the company could also attempt to sell some of its more than 200 mall properties on the open market or to sell properties to joint ventures. \u201cGGP does have joint ventures with large, institutional joint venture partners,\u201d said Steven Marks, an analyst with Fitch. GGP\u2019s institutional partners include the New York State Common Retirement Fund, Teachers Retirement Fund of Illinois and a Morgan Stanley Real Estate fund, continued Marks. Can GGP save itself? \u201cThe company needs the debt capital markets to start functioning,\u201d Marks said. \u201cAnd it needs a lot of things to go right.\u201dGGP owns, develops, operates and\/or manages shopping malls in 44 states. As of January, 2008, the firm had ownership interests in and\/or management responsibility for more than 200 regional shopping malls totaling approximately 200 million square feet of retail space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chicago-based retail REIT General Growth Properties is battling to survive billions of dollars in maturing debt during a period of frozen credit markets by soliciting the sale of up to $2 billion in preferred shares to investors.About $1.2 billion in debt will mature in November with another $1.3 billion following in December, according to the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1314,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37301],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1003876141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n