General Growth Properties (NYSE: GGP) has changed its bankruptcy counsel from Sidley Austin LLP to hire Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, according to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required). The latter firm has also worked on the Lehman Bros. bankruptcy.The company has warned that it may have to file for bankruptcy if it can't find a way to restructure the more than $27 billion in debt that will come due over the next few months.
Back in January 2008, then-Marketwatch columnist Herb Greenberg raised red flags over General Growth Properties' debt load. The company responded with a press release saying that "The Company is absolutely not in any danger of having to contemplate a bankruptcy filing, and the Company unequivocally has no intention of doing so." The company added that it had assets that "can be used through a variety of means to raise substantially more capital than could be required, even under the most "doomsday" of future possible scenarios for how the current commercial retail real estate markets might evolve over the next two years."
Well here's the doomsday scenario and there are the bankruptcy lawyers. But don't worry: The press release added that "Actual results may differ materially from the results suggested by these forward-looking statements, for a number of reasons."
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-05-2009 @ 4:08PM
William Kionka said...
Here in Las Vegas the verdict is in; General Growth is out. They are sitting on vacant land just south of the Rivera which they purchased last spring from the Doumani family (5.4 acres at $ 33 mil per), they own vacant land across from Mandalay Bay on the airport side, they started infrastructure work for the Summerlin Regional Mall adjacent to Station's Red Rock Casino Resort, now stopped. Fashion Mall, Venetian Shops and Palazzo Shops have been put on the auction block but no one will come forward until the bankruptcy judge takes control. Viva Las Vegas
1-06-2009 @ 12:07AM
BHarrison said...
Hmmmmm . . . it would appear that most of our corporations became a gigantitic Ponzi scheme of sorts, and now that the entire scheme (sic. the previus "economic boom") has collapsed, the "bailout process" is merely an attempt to make the "makers" of the Ponzi scheme "well".
So far, the "bailout programs" have basically ONLY made the culprits . . . the corrupt FIs and corporations . . . "well" in as much as they can. The Fed is said to be injetting TRILLIONS of dollars into varous FIs and companies, not just the measely $700 "BILLIONS" of dollars that were approved" by Congress for the official "bailout plan".
If our government cannot control the actions of the Fed, the Federal Reserve Bank, which is a PRIVATELY OWNED BANK, then WHO is controlling all of this?
The situation is really a lot more dire than any one can or will admit to. Once Obama takes office, then things will begin to unfold; and it is not going to be a pretty picture.