| John Bucksbaum is starting to open up about his side of the story in the GGP bankruptcy. The former CEO spoke to YREP at DePaulon Friday about how he grew into the family company founded by his father and uncles in 1950s Iowa. John became the CEO in 1999, about nine years before the company, faced with a mountain of maturing loans, filed for Chapter 11. While many blamed the company's acquisition of Rouse in 2004, John says it was more a combination of economic and organizational factors. GGP never defaulted on a loan and had 1.3 billion visits to its 200 malls each year, John says. While he served as chairman of the company untillast November, he's now thinking of getting into another area of the real estate or retail business. | |
| We snapped Lone Star Funds' Matt Schneider, Marcus & Millichap'sJohn Morrissey, and the Weitzman Group's Keith Brennan grabbing a bite before John's speech. Matt, who used to head up Chicago YREP recently moved to New York, where he works on lending with Lone Star. Keith is working on consulting and planning for a fewretail shopping projects on the West Coast. |
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