Now It's Official

A month ago, when I wrote this post about the new name for the General Growth Properties spin off company, I was asked by a senior executive at GGP to play that down. Apparently, William Ackman, one of the largest shareholders in the newly created entity, had spoken out a little too soon. At that point the company was still assembling its new board.

Now it's official. According to this story by Steve Green in the Las Vegas Sun, the new company has assembled it's board of directors and formally adopted a new old name, The Howard Hughes Corporation. GGP had already been using this name for some of it's Las Vegas operations. The company obtained the rights to the Howard Hughes name when they acquired The Rouse Company in 2004. The Rouse Company acquired the Howard Hughes Corporation in 1996. During Howard Hughes lifetime the company was known as Summa Corp.

What has yet to be decided is where the new firm will be headquartered.

"There was no mention in today's announcement on whether a decision had been made on where the new The Howard Hughes Corporation would be based and if any corporate jobs would be moving around as part of the spinoff. A spokesman said there was no immediate information to disclose on those issues."


On the other hand they do already own a pretty nice headquarters building in Columbia.