Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 7, Issue 3, March 2003

Copyright 2003 Seattle Sun. Please feel free to use the article and photos below in your research. Be sure to quote the Seattle Sun as your source.

Who is Simon Property Group?

Northgate Mall is owned by Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group, the world's largest shopping center operator, with 242 properties throughout the United States, as well as eight properties in Europe and Canada. Its properties total 183 million square feet of leasable space.

Its malls include the nation's largest mall the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn. Locally, Simon also owns the Tacoma Mall.

Simon acquired Northgate when it merged with DeBartolo Realty Corp. in 1996 to form Simon DeBartolo Group. (DeBartolo bought Northgate in 1986.)

The company changed its name back to Simon Property Group in 1998 after Edward DeBartolo Jr. resigned amid reports that the then-owner of the NFL San Francisco 49ers was being investigated by a federal grand jury on whether he committed fraud in a case involving riverboat casinos in Louisiana.

Simon has recently been involved in a hostile $4.25 billion takeover rival shopping mall operator, Taubman Centers Inc. Those efforts, thus far, have been rebuffed by the Taubman family.

On Feb. 6, Simon reported that it generated $112 million in fourth quarter profits, an 86 percent increase compared with the same period a year ago.

Simon is a publicly traded Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The company is headed by several members of the Simon family: co-chairmen Herbert and Melvin Simon and CEO David Simon.