NEW YORK (Reuters) – General Growth Properties Inc, the second largest U.S. mall owner, filed for bankruptcy protection on Thursday in one of the biggest real estate failures in U.S. history.
Ending months of speculation, the Chicago-based mall owner, which listed total assets of $29.56 billion and total debts of $27.29 billion, sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors along with 158 of its more than 200 U.S. malls, while it seeks to restructure some of its debt.
Since November, General Growth has warned that it may have to seek protection from its creditors when it was unable to refinance maturing mortgages.
The company said in a statement that it planned to continue exploring strategic alternatives during the bankruptcy protection, from which it is seeking to emerge as quickly as possible through a reorganization that preserves its national business.
General Growth's filing in the U.S. bankruptcy court in Manhattan makes it one of the largest nonfinancial companies to succumb to the financial crisis in the U.S.
Before the bankruptcy protection filing, the company had defaulted on several mortgages as well as a series of bonds. It has also put several of its flagship properties up for sale.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090416/bs_nm/us_generalgrowth_bankrupcty
Just for your info, the market rallied on Apr 16, 2009 while this news was released.
Quite a few prominent analysts have been warning commercial real estate is the next shoe to drop. The private residential real estate has been sliding for a while but non residential is only beginning to roll from the top of the hill. How big is commercial real estate market? What is the impact on banks? I am still finding answers to these questions.
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