Owner of Miami Valley malls altering status

Washington Prime Group, owner of 2 area malls, set to go private.

Columbus-based Washington Prime Group leaves the New York Stock Exchange as it prepares to emerge from bankruptcy.

COLUMBUS — Washington Prime Group, the Columbus-based owner of two Miami Valley malls — the Mall at Fairfield Commons in Beavercreek, the Dayton Mall, and about 100 other shopping centers nationwide — is preparing to emerge from bankruptcy as a private company.

The company announced Tuesday that it will inform the New York Stock Exchange on Sept. 20 that it plans to delist its shares. The company expects that its shares will stop trading on Sept. 29.

The move follows U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur’s approval on Friday of Washington Prime’s plan to emerge from bankruptcy.

“Because the company’s common stock and preferred stock will no longer be publicly held upon its expected emergence from its previously announced Chapter 11 proceedings, the company believes that the costs and expenses associated with the continued listing of the common stock and preferred equity, and the corresponding governance and filing requirements, are not economically justified,” the company announced Tuesday.

Washington Prime has been working on a restructuring plan since filing for bankruptcy protection in June, one of several mall operators to file for protection during the COVID-19 pandemic as many consumers shifted to online purchasing.

The company said when it filed that it had reached agreements with creditors who held 73% of the company’s secured debt and had received $100 million in financing from its creditors to support daily operations at its centers. Creditors are led by the Connecticut-based Svpglobal, which specializes in distressed debt.

Washington Prime’s stock price has fallen from $191 a share in 2014 to about $1.30 a share in Tuesday morning trading.

The company did not say when it expects to emerge from bankruptcy. The last deadline in the bankruptcy proceedings for creditors to file proof of claims is Dec. 20.

Despite the bankruptcy, Polaris Fashion Place has added several tenants since reopening from the pandemic.

In addition to Mall at Fairfield Commons and the Dayton Mall, the company owns seven Ohio shopping centers: Indian Mound Mall in Heath; Polaris Fashion Place in Columbus; New Towne Mall in New Philadelphia; Lima Mall and Lima Center; Great Lakes Mall in Mentor; and Southern Park Mall in Youngstown.