The Simon brothers' first developments were small, open-air plazas, usually including a grocery store or drug store as an anchor. Petitioning his brothers for assistance, Simon founded Melvin Simon & Associates (MSA) and began his career as a developer. Soon, he realized that there was a promising future in developing retail shopping centers. After his military discharge, he remained in the Indianapolis area, took a job as a leasing agent, and set about learning the real estate business. With a degree in accounting from the City College of New York, Simon had enlisted in the Army and been stationed at Fort Benjamin Harrison's Army Finance Center near Indianapolis, Indiana. The shopping mall empire that is Simon Property Group began in 1960, when Melvin Simon, a leasing agent for an Indiana real estate firm, asked his brothers Herbert and Fred to leave New York and join him in Indiana. Since its initial public offering in December 1993, the company has more than tripled in size. Simon's properties-primarily shopping malls, community shopping centers, and specialty and mixed-use properties-attract more than 1.6 billion shopping visits yearly. Through subsidiary partnerships, Simon owns, develops, manages, leases, and expands retail properties in 35 states, totaling approximately 180 million square feet of gross leasable area. With ownership or interest in more than 240 properties and a total market capitalization of $17 billion, the Indianapolis, Indiana-based company is the largest REIT in the world. is a self-administered, self-managed real estate investment trust (REIT).

We accomplish this by developing new retail properties, enhancing the performance of our existing portfolio, growing our company through acquisitions, and creating new revenue opportunities from the millions of customers that pass through our doors every year. Our vision is to be the industry's unquestioned leader. As the world's largest retail real estate investment trust, we are committed to use our vast resources and marketing expertise to serve our constituents-shoppers, retailers, investors and other strategic partners. As a real estate investment trust (REIT), we provide an opportunity for investors to participate in the ownership of commercial real estate. And it's about providing our shareholders with consistent and reliable performance. It's about providing retailers with world class venues in which they can build lasting and mutually beneficial relationships with their customers. Simon Property Group is about building shareholder value in the retail real estate business.

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