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JPMORGAN BUYS ONTARIO MILLS STAKE

The Mills Corp. and its German investment partner, Kan Am, sold a 50 percent stake in the Ontario (Calif.) Mills value megamall to JPMorgan Fleming for $243 million.

Mills sold a 15 percent interest, while Kan Am divested its entire 35 percent stake in the 1.5 million-square-foot center, which lies about 40 minutes east of Los Angeles. Mills and JPMorgan now form a 50-50 partnership, their first such venture together.

Ontario Mills, which opened in 1996, is Mills’ fifth megamall. Its 23 anchors include an AMC theater, a Burlington Coat Factory and a Nordstrom Rack.

JPMorgan was just one of several suitors, Mills says.

“We ran a competitive process for the sale of [these] joint-venture interests and received multiple proposals from well-respected North American institutions, all of whom are substantial investors in regional malls,” said Mills President Mark S. Ettenger in a press release.

Kan Am is a longtime Mills partner whose interests include the Denver-area Colorado Mills and the Great Mall of the Bay Area, in Milpitas, Calif.

JPMorgan entities have shown a heightened interest in retail real estate of late. In December JPMorgan Fleming, an arm of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (today it is JPMorgan Chase & Co.), formed a $150 million venture with New Plan Excel Realty Trust to acquire community and neighborhood centers. Another Morgan unit, JPMorgan Partners, has joined Apollo Management to buy the AMC movie theater chain for $2 billion.

Mills owns about 30 retail-entertainment centers (existing and under development) in North America and one in Spain.