(Ian Ritter is national online editor for GlobeSt.com/RETAIL.)
ARLINGTON, VA-The Mills Corp.'s management reiterated in a company statement that the REIT is looking at strategic alternatives, including the sale of all or part of the firm. The declaration comes as the company is letting go 70 employees, including the president of its development division, James Dausch, on top of the 90 employees it has already announced.
Mark Ettenger, Mills' president, Goldman, Sachs & Co. and JP Morgan Securities, are heading the potential sale process. Suitors for the company include Vornado Realty Trust. Speaking at an investor conference yesterday in New York City, a Vornado executive did not specify about his firm's interest in Mills.
Dausch, who joined Mills in 1995, is leaving his position with the company on May 2. He will continue to serve as a consultant with the firm on its development of Meadowlands Xanadu, a 4.7-million-sf a retail-entertainment destination in Bergen County, NJ. Mike Bryant, a consultant for Mills and former executive at the Rouse Co., is replacing Dausch.
Mills has hired Richard J. Nardeau, the former chief financial officer of Colt Defense LLC, as executive vice president of finance and accounting. He is assisting in the restatement of the company's financials since 2000 and is expected to transition in the position of chief financial officer.
Mill's troubles were made public, for the most part, last year when third-quarter NOI fell 5.2%, to $104.7 million, from the same year-ago period, while FFO dropped 53.6%, to $0.45 per share. Those plunges were due, in part, to a variety of charges taken on in regard to projects in the company's pipeline, the failure to collect some rents and other accounting flaws.
"These changes are designed to help ensure that we continue to build value in our core operating properties and development and redevelopment opportunities and that we prudently manage our resources and spending," says Laurence. Siegel, the company's chairman and chief executive officer. Mills owns 42 centers in the US, Canada and Europe.
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