General Growth Properties Inc. (GGP)

[justthefactsmam]

i was surfing and just came back to ggp and saw this news. linked it to post here and saw it was already posted. my take, if it is true, it that this is great news. while i think it will elicit more bidding, i ultimately want ggp to survive as a stand alone company under current management with a bam, pershing, and now possibly fairholme jv.

if these guys can pay off the unsecureds who do not want to play nice and then let the others convert to equity, i think this could really be a phenominal cash machine down the road.

bam seems to have their balance sheet in order and if they can prevail on ggp to pay off or pay down some of the secured debt and strengthen the balance sheet this should be a sweet investment, post bk.

i just hope ggp has been sufficiently chastened about leverage and how quickly it can come back to bite you in the rear. bigger is not always better, especially if it has to be done with leverage. the world economy is still very very fragile and the best way to be able to ride out any more economic tsunamis is to make sure you can float above it all.

i just think this is all very encouraging and it will sure be fun to see how it plays out.

i still need to rebalance because of my outsized ggp holdings but my plan was to wait until the por was approved to begin that process. i'm still inclined to stick with that plan. all of my ggp stock has now been held for in excess of one year so i am in the capital gains position. that said, i will probably sell the 40% of my ggp position which is in ira's and then sell 2k or 3k of the 15k shares i have in my taxable account and then let the other 12k shares ride and collect dividends and hopefully see some significant appreciation.

as i posted earlier this evening, forbes reported that ggp was the 3rd best stock for the period from march 9, 2009 through february 28, 2010. since my purchased were from march 3rd through march 7th of 2009, i have done modestly better. what a ride it has been.

nonetheless, it is scary having so much tied up in this one stock but all indicators point to stability for ggp, absent another horrible leg down or some type of geopolitical disaster. i'm just hoping that the por is filed before any shat hits the fan which could derail this train.

fingers crossed, so much is completely out of our hands. just need to stay on top of the news and be ready to move on short notice if need be.