Jackson Hsieh.
Jackson Hsieh
President and CEO at Macerich
On March 1, 2024, Jackson Hsieh took the helm of perhaps the nation’s most successful mall owner.
“Most successful mall owner” is saying something. Yes, brick-and-mortar retail made some gains in 2023 compared to years prior. But most mall owners absorbed substantial losses in tenancies and revenue.
The publicly traded, Santa Monica, Calif.-based Macerich was a different story. Its leasing volume increased 12 percent annually last year through 4.2 million square feet in deals. That was enough to bring occupancy at Macerich properties to 93.5 percent, a slight rise compared to 2022. This in turn drove its revenue to $62.2 million for the fourth quarter, leaps ahead of the $1.7 million from the same time a year before.
The year also included major deals for Macerich, which closed out 2023 with 46 million square feet of malls and shopping centers. In the first week of January 2024, Macerich and partner Hudson Pacific Properties closed on the sale of Los Angeles’ Westside Pavilion mall, which was supposed to become new offices for Google, to UCLA for $700 million. A few weeks before that Westside sale, the company also secured nearly $1 billion in refinancing for two malls in Connecticut and Virginia.
It’s not all food courts and free samples, though. Macerich lost $127 million in the first quarter of this year and is now considering selling 10 assets, according to its latest earnings call. Still, leasing was up annually again, and occupancy stood at 93.4 percent.
As for those asset sales, according to Hsieh, who comes from a background in investment banking and real estate investment trusts, the move is necessary to position Macerich for further growth.
“In our space, there are basically two public companies that focus on enclosed shopping centers and lifestyle centers. We’re one of them,” he said on the call. “And I think there’s honestly going to be some opportunity in the future to look at really interesting centers in time. So my objective is to get our organization ready for that pivot when it comes, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
