History
The company's roots go back to a group of companies established by lawyer and single family home builder Bertram Wolstein, an alumnus of Cleveland–Marshall College of Law. In 1965 he switched to commercial real estate and began a partnership with Kmart, with the first one built in 1965.
On September 12, 2011 the company announced plans to change its name from Developers Diversified Realty Corporation to DDR Corp., adopting the NYSE ticker symbol as its name. The name change took effect September 15, 2011. According to CEO Daniel Hurwitz, the company's new focus (value-oriented shopping centers) and simplified strategy necessitated the removal of the words developers and diversified from the name. The change in strategy comes about a year and a half after the company made significant changes to management; In January 2010 it promoted Daniel B. Hurwitz to CEO, prior to that he was president from May 2007.
On September 7, 2011 DDR engaged in an asset swap with Glimcher Realty Trust. The deal saw DDR exchanging its ownership of Kansas City's Town Center Plaza for Columbus, Ohio's Polaris Towne Center.
Sonae Sierra Brazil, with which DDR Corp. has ten shopping centers and three development projects, went public in February 2011 with a market cap of $900 million.
Read more about this topic: DDR Corp.
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