Regional Mall REITs: Simon Property Group and Macerich

Introduction

The public regional mall REIT universe used to have a dozen names. After PREIT, Washington Prime, and CBL & Associates all filed for Chapter 11 between 2020 and 2023, the surviving public mall REITs essentially come down to two: Simon Property Group (SPG) at over $60 billion equity market cap, and Macerich (MAC) at roughly $3 billion. That twentyfold size gap is the first thing to understand about the segment, because it tracks a far more important split in asset quality. Simon's 2025 results read nothing like the "malls are dying" headline: domestic property NOI grew 4.4%, portfolio NOI grew 4.7%, occupancy held at 96.4%, and real estate FFO of $12.73 per share beat the company's own guidance. Those are not distressed numbers. Macerich, with a smaller and lower-quality portfolio, posted more mixed results over the same period.

The reason both can be true is that "regional mall" is not one asset class. A Class A trophy mall in a primary market with luxury tenants and $800-per-square-foot sales productivity is a different business from a Class B/C mall losing anchors and converting space to medical offices or apartments. Treating the two as a single category produces misleading sector conclusions, which is why coverage of mall REITs starts by separating the trophy portfolio from the lower-tier tail. Simon sits almost entirely on the trophy side; Macerich straddles both; the restructured and privatized names live mostly on the other.

Simon owns roughly 200 super-regional malls and premium outlets across the US and a handful of international markets, the largest collection of Class A mall and outlet real estate in the world. The scale shows up in every operating line:

What protects those numbers is a set of advantages a smaller competitor cannot replicate. The portfolio concentrates in super-regional trophy properties with irreplaceable locations and captive tenant demand, the kind of assets where tenant sales productivity runs high enough to support strong base rents plus percentage-rent overrides. The Premium Outlets platform operates on separate economics from the traditional mall business and rides the structural growth of outlet shopping. Investment-grade balance sheet strength keeps Simon's cost of debt low, which directly supports the FFO line that mall REITs are valued on; the FFO framework is the metric where this advantage compounds. And the integrated platform captures cross-property economies in tenant relationships and leasing that a 50-asset operator simply does not have access to. The combination is what lets Simon grow the dividend through a period the rest of the sector spent in bankruptcy court.

Class A Trophy Mall

The highest-quality tier of regional mall property, characterized by location in primary markets, premium tenant mix including luxury and aspirational brands, strong sales productivity per square foot ($600+ typical), high occupancy (95%+ sustained), and irreplaceable locations that cannot be easily replicated by new development. Class A trophy malls (King of Prussia, South Coast Plaza, Aventura Mall, The Galleria Houston, Roosevelt Field, Westfield Century City, similar properties) have demonstrated continued operational resilience through the e-commerce era and the post-pandemic period; the trophy designation requires both physical asset quality and demonstrated continued tenant demand and sales productivity.

The Premium Outlets Platform

Simon's Premium Outlets business represents a meaningful share of company value and operates under different economics than traditional mall properties. The platform operates ~70 outlet centers globally featuring premium brand outlets (Coach, Michael Kors, Polo Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Nike, Adidas, similar premium brands at discount pricing). The outlet model captures value-conscious consumer demand at a different price point than traditional mall retail, providing structural differentiation that has supported the platform's continued growth even as traditional mall properties have faced challenges.

The premium outlets concentrate geographically in high-traffic tourist destinations (Las Vegas, Orlando, Niagara Falls, and similar locations) plus suburban affluent markets. Outlet center operating economics typically feature higher sales productivity per square foot than comparable traditional retail, with strong tenant demand from premium brands seeking outlet distribution channels. The Premium Outlets platform is one of the structural reasons Simon's overall portfolio has performed better than peers concentrated entirely in traditional mall real estate.

Sales per square foot is the single number that separates a trophy asset from a struggling one, and it is the metric to reach for first when sizing up any mall property.

Sales Per Square Foot (Mall Context)

Annual tenant sales revenue divided by leased gross leasable area, expressed in dollars per square foot. It is the standard measure of mall productivity and tenant demand. Class A trophy malls typically run $600 to $1,500+ per sqft; Class B regional malls land around $350 to $550; Class C malls fall to $200 to $350; struggling malls dip below $200. Higher tenant sales support higher achievable base rents plus percentage-rent overrides, which lifts property NOI and tightens the cap rate a buyer will pay, so the metric maps almost directly onto valuation.

Macerich (MAC) at approximately $3 billion equity market cap operates a meaningfully smaller portfolio of approximately 50 regional malls concentrated in primary US markets. The company's portfolio includes a mix of Class A trophy properties and Class B regional malls, producing mixed operating results across the portfolio. Macerich's strategic positioning has emphasized continued investment in the trophy properties while pursuing select dispositions and joint ventures in lower-tier assets.

The balance sheet has been more strained than Simon's, reflecting the smaller scale, the meaningful Class B exposure, and a higher leverage profile carried through the post-pandemic period. Macerich has worked through selective asset sales, joint ventures, and refinancings to preserve flexibility, with each disposition priced off the implied cap rate the market will assign to the asset being sold. The forward outlook hangs on continued execution of that deleveraging plus a retail recovery strong enough to support tenant demand and lease economics across the lower-tier part of the book.

The two public survivors are not the whole picture. A meaningful share of US mall real estate sits in private and institutional hands. Brookfield Properties owns the former GGP (General Growth Properties) portfolio, acquired in 2018 for roughly $9 billion when Brookfield took out what was then the second-largest US mall operator. Separately, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) owns the former Westfield US portfolio, picked up when URW bought Westfield in 2018, and URW has since been selling down its US exposure rather than transferring it to Brookfield. Beyond Brookfield, various private equity firms hold individual mall properties picked up through restructurings.

What thinned the public universe was a wave of distress that ran directly through the mall-focused names. PREIT (Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust) went through Chapter 11 twice, in 2020 and again in 2023, before exiting the public markets. Washington Prime filed in 2021, and CBL & Associates filed in 2020 before reorganizing. This is the concrete version of the structural shift the US retail real estate after e-commerce article traces: the lower-quality mall REITs did not slowly decline, they defaulted, while the trophy operators kept compounding. Simon and Macerich are what is left standing on the public side, plus the post-restructuring smaller players.

The practical consequence for anyone covering the segment is that a sector-level average is close to useless. Blend Simon's trophy super-regional and outlet portfolio with the converting Class B and C tail and you get a number that describes no actual asset. Trophy portfolios still draw institutional capital, premium tenant demand, and sustained operating performance; the lower tier draws anchor departures, demolition-or-redevelop decisions, and distressed pricing. The two have to be looked at separately for trading comps, M&A screening, and any sector call.

One last boundary worth drawing: regional mall REITs are not the same peer set as the grocery-anchored shopping-center names. Realty Income, Regency Centers, Brixmor, Kimco, and Federal Realty own a structurally different product, necessity-driven retail with daily-needs tenants, and they trade on a different set of fundamentals. Folding them into a "retail REIT" comp set alongside Simon and Macerich muddies both groups. The discipline that makes mall coverage work, separating trophy from tail, applies one level up too: know which retail sub-sector you are actually pricing before you reach for a multiple.