Summerlin developer rejects hedge-fund magnate’s $900M offer
Summerlin developer Howard Hughes Holdings rejected hedge-fund magnate Bill Ackman’s offer to buy $900 million of stock and take charge of the company.
Texas-based Hughes Holdings said Monday that a special committee of its board responded to Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management, saying his investment firm’s recent offer was “not acceptable in its current form.”
The committee has entered a standstill agreement with Pershing to “facilitate further discussions to explore potential alternatives,” the developer said.
That agreement will remain in effect until March 13 but could be extended, it indicated.
New York-based Pershing Square told the Review-Journal on Monday that it doesn’t have any comment at this time.
The firm’s parent company announced last month that it offered to acquire 10 million newly issued shares in Hughes Holdings for $90 apiece. Under the deal, the firm’s ownership stake in the developer would climb from 37.6 percent to 48 percent, and Ackman would become chairman and chief executive of Hughes Holdings.
His cash infusion also would enable the developer to “immediately” start pursuing deals to acquire controlling stakes in companies as part of its “new strategy of becoming a diversified holding company,” according to a news release from Pershing Square.
Hughes Holdings’ principal subsidiary “will continue on its mission” to develop and grow master-planned communities, Ackman wrote on X at the time.
His firm also said the unit would “remain unchanged” with the same strategic direction and senior leadership.
In January, Ackman had offered to buy out other stockholders in Hughes Holdings for $1 billion total. He withdrew that offer when his firm submitted the revised proposal in February.
Hughes Holdings has projects and properties in Texas, Arizona, Hawaii, Maryland and Nevada.
Spanning 22,500 acres along the Las Vegas Valley’s western rim, Summerlin boasts 120,000-plus residents, some of the highest home prices in Southern Nevada and a network of parks, trails and community centers.
Hughes Holdings sells land in Summerlin to homebuilders and has developed hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of projects in the heart of Las Vegas’ biggest master-planned community.
Its namesake Howard Hughes, the famed aviator, business tycoon and recluse, acquired the land now known as Summerlin in the 1950s.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.
