The Howard Hughes Corporation (NYSE: HHC) is a major real estate development and management company based in Dallas, Texas, which was founded by Howard Hughes. Later sold to the Rouse Company, it became a separate company again in 2010, as a spinoff of General Growth Properties (GGP).
Upon exiting bankruptcy, GGP spun off The Howard Hughes Corporation as a public company on November 9, 2010. GGP stockholders received 0.098344 shares of The Howard Hughes Corporation common stock for every 1 share of GGP common stock held.[1] At that point, HHC assumed ownership of all of the GGPs planned developments, including one of the country's original master planned communities of Columbia, Maryland, and The Shops at Summerlin Centre.[2]
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The company date to 1909 when Howard Hughes, Sr. received two patents for his revolutionary oil well drilling bits. Incorporated as the Sharp-Hughes Tool Company in 1913 owned by Walter Sharp and Hughes. It retained that name until 1915 when Hughes became the sole owner and renamed the company Hughes Tool Company.[3]
Originally known as Summa Corporation, The Howard Hughes Corporation was formed in 1972 when the oil tools business of Hughes Tool Company, then owned by Howard Hughes, Jr., was floated on the New York Stock Exchange under the Hughes Tool name. This forced the remaining businesses of the "original" Hughes Tool to adopt a new corporate name - Summa. The name "Summa", Latin for "higher", was adopted without the approval of Hughes himself, who preferred to keep his own name on the business and suggested HRH Properties (for Hughes Resorts and Hotels, and also his own initials), but his executives paid no attention.
Following the death of Howard Robard Hughes Jr. in 1976 at age 70, most of Summa's remaining business were sold off. Howard Hughes had amassed vast holdings of undeveloped land both in Las Vegas and in the desert surrounding the city that had gone unutilized during his lifetime. His successors at Summa refocused the company on real estate development, selling all noncore business holdings.
Holdings sold off were:
Summa also owned a wide array of hotels and casinos, primarily in Las Vegas, that constituted the bulk of Summa's business in the 1970s.
Hughes' heirs eventually renamed the company in his honor, Summa became Howard Hughes Corporation in 1994. Hughes' heirs sold The Howard Hughes Corporation to the Rouse Company in 1996, and the company survives as a Rouse subsidiary. Rouse was acquired by General Growth Properties in 2004. Hughes' heirs, primarily the Lummis family, continue to hold an equity interest in Summerlin, a giant planned residential community being built in stages by The Howard Hughes Corporation on the Las Vegas outskirts.
The Howard Hughes Corporation's current projects are Summerlin, a massive master planned community that houses over 80,000 residents and will eventually house 160,000; Summerlin Centre, a mixed-use town center for Summerlin, and Fashion Show, a giant retail center in downtown Las Vegas currently undergoing a major redevelopment.[5] Included in its properties under the GGP reorganization is the mixed-use Town Center of Columbia, Maryland, for which a world-class redevelopment plan was recently approved that incorporates modern environmental and smart growth principles.
Most of The Howard Hughes Corporation's past projects have been business parks in the Las Vegas area, including The Crossings, The Canyons, The Plazas, Corporate Pointe, and Hughes Center.