US-based shopping mall owner files for banktrupcy

Bloomberg

General Growth, which owns more than 200 shopping malls in the U.S., sought Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. The company listed $29.5 billion in total assets and debts of about $27.3 billion, making it the largest real estate bankruptcy in U.S. history.

"While we have worked tirelessly in the past several months to address our maturing debts, the collapse of the credit markets has made it impossible for us to refinance maturing debt outside of Chapter 11," Chief Executive Officer Adam Metz said in a statement yesterday.

The filing lists Eurohypo, a unit of Commerzbank, as General Growth’s largest unsecured creditor with claims totaling $2.6 billion under two loans. Noteholders are owed about $4 billion in total. Much of the firm’s debt can be traced to its $11.3 billion purchase of commercial property developer Rouse Co. in 2004. The company lost 81 percent of its market value in six months after saying repeatedly it may have to file for bankruptcy.