Melvin Simon was an American businessman and film producer, who co-founded the largest shopping mall company in the United States, the Simon Property Group, with his younger brother, Herb Simon. The pair jointly purchased the Indiana Pacers in 1983.
Early life and education
Simon was born to a Jewish family in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and grew up in the Bronx, the son of Max and Mae Simon. His father was a tailor who had emigrated from Central Europe. Simon graduated from the Bronx High School of Science and earned a degree in accounting from the City College of New York in 1949. He then served in the US Army where he was stationed at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis in 1953. He supplemented his army pay working as a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman. After leaving the military, he decided to stay in Indianapolis and took a job as a leasing agent where he saw the potential in real estate.
Career
Real estate
After a few years as a leasing agent and having handled leasing at several shopping centers, he formed his own leasing company in 1959 with his younger brother Herb, Melvin Simon & Associates. Melvin owned 2/3rd of the business and Herb the remainder. They started out by developing strip centers anchored by groceries and drugstores; they soon graduated to developing fully enclosed malls. By 1967, they owned and operated more than 3 million square feet of retail property and expanded nationally. His oldest brother Fred Simon joined the business and became the longtime leasing director at Simon Property Group. The Simons followed a very successful strategy. They would entice a large anchor tenant, typically a department store, to their planned mall by charging them less rent and then would use the contract to obtain bank financing for the construction usually with minimal investment from the Simons. Once the project was completed, the Simons would charge smaller stores a higher rate and also required that stores pay a premium over their rent if their sales exceeded pre-negotiated levels. In 1993, Melvin Simon & Associates went public as the Simon Property Group raising $1 billion for the Simon brothers. At the time, this was the largest real estate stock offering ever made. In 1996, the company merged with the DeBartolo Realty Corporation in a $3.0 billion merger becoming the Simon DeBartolo Group. In 1998, the company reverted to the Simon Property Group name and maintains its title as the largest mall operator in the United States, owning 386 properties in North America, Europe and Asia; clocking 2.8 billion shopper visits each year, and having annual sales in excess of $60 billion. The company, although publicly held, remained controlled by the Simon brothers.
Movies
In the 1970s, Simon expanded into producing films with Melvin Simon Productions but ended up losing millions of dollars in what he later called a "big mistake". He produced the 1982 adolescent comedy Porky's. Movies produced by Melvin Simon Productions:
Indiana Pacers
In 1983, the Simons bought the NBA franchise, the Indiana Pacers.
Personal life
Simon was married twice. His first wife was Bess Meshulam. They later divorced. They had three children: Deborah Simon, Cynthia A. Simon Skjodt, and David E. Simon, who became chairman and CEO of Simon Property Group. In 1972, Simon married Bren Burns and adopted Burn's daughter, Tamme McCauley. They also had a son, Joshua Max, who died in 1999 at the age of 25. Simon was a member of the Beth-El Zedeck congregation in Indianapolis. Simon died of cancer on September 16, 2009 at the age of 82. At the time of his death, his wealth was estimated at $1.3 billion. After his death, a dispute over his most recent will arose between his children from his first marriage and his wife. The will, signed with the physical assistance of a financial advisor, was amended seven months before his death. The revised will provided significantly more for Burns, and significantly less for his children by his first marriage, than previous versions.
