Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
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In 2012, five years after taking charge of a fail- ing chain called Sunrise Senior Living, he sold the Virginia-based chain to Toledo, Ohio–based Health Care REIT for $845 million. This was Ordan's sec- ond successful turnaround in 10 years. He had also taken The Mills Corp., one of the largest mall opera- tors, from the threat of bankruptcy to a roughly $1.6 billion buyout deal in 2007. Shrugging off invitations to keep running Sunrise, Ordan instead began contemplating his next move. "Once things are fixed, I think there are better people at maintaining the day-to-day operations [of companies]," he said. "I like volatility." Today Mark S. Ordan is CEO of Washington Prime Group, the REIT spinoff of 44 enclosed malls and 54 strip centers that mall firm Simon formed last May. Simon knew for sure that Ordan was the man to head up the new venture. Interestingly, though, at that time, there happened to be three things Ordan himself knew for sure: He would not go to work for a public company, he was going to stick to investments by just himself and a small pool of people, and he was defi- nitely going to avoid corporate boards of every type. aRk ORdan SEEMS TO have a persistent habit of fixing things that need fixing. Maybe some would call it a gift or calling rather than a habit, but whatever the case, Ordan is both consistent and skilled at turning ailing companies around. That was the plan. Until Simon tele- phoned. "Mark has a very broad set of experiences as both a chairman and chief executive offi- cer of public companies," said Rick Sokolov, president and COO of Simon. "He founded [natural-foods chain] Fresh Fields and has had specific experience in retail as CEO of the Mills and chairman of Federal Realty Trust." What was a talented turnaround man to do? Say yes, apparently. Setting aside all his earlier determinations, Ordan answered the call. "I violated everything I said I would do," he said with a laugh. "But the opportunity to work with Simon is, by definition, unique. I think they're the best in the business." Furthermore, he felt compelled to retest his M Turnaround man mark ordan turns his hand to the new washington prime group By Rebecca Meiser n e w s M a k e r s 52 s C T / F e b r u a r y 2 0 1 5