(Hedge fund manager William Ackman)
Hedge fund manager William Ackman sold his entire stake in Rouse Properties Inc when the company was spun off from General Growth Properties Inc , he said at a conference on Thursday.
After finding the market for lower sales generating "B" and "C" quality malls, General Growth, the No. 2 U.S. mall owner, spun off 31 malls in January to shareholders. As one of the major shareholders of General Growth, Ackman's fund company, Pershing Square Capital Management received shares, which Ackman immediately sold.
"It's tiny," Ackman said after participating at a panel at the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate 17th Annual REIT Symposium. "And I'm not really a lover of the B and C mall space."
Depending on whose rule is used to measure, class "B" and "C" malls typically generate under $350 per share. Many "A" malls generate well over $500 per square foot.
Rouse was the second company General Growth spun off after emerging from bankruptcy protection in November 2010.
General Growth completed the spin off of Rouse in January this year. Rouse shares closed down 1.4 percent, or 19 cents per share, at $13.63 on the New York Stock Exchange and underperformed the benchmark MSCI US REIT index, which was off 0.05 percent.
