HOUSTON – (Realty News Report) – Howard Hughes Corp., the developer behind master-planned communities such as The Woodlands, Bridgeland and Summerlin in Las Vegas, has appointed Paul Layne as its new CEO and will relocate the company’s headquarters to The Woodlands.
After completing a strategic review, the company also announced plans to sell approximately $2 billion in non-core assets. Proceeds from those sales will be used for share repurchases and to accelerate development in its core master-planned communities.
Former CEO David Weinreb and company president Grant Herlitz have departed the firm. Howard Hughes expects to record a one-time charge of about $40 million related to severance and the headquarters relocation from Dallas to The Woodlands.
Layne previously served as an executive at Brookfield Properties, where he oversaw the firm’s downtown Houston office towers. In 2012 he joined Howard Hughes to manage The Woodlands, a 28,000-acre community north of downtown Houston.
Bill Ackman, Chairman of the Board, praised the appointment: “Having had the opportunity to observe Paul’s successful stewardship of The Woodlands and the Company’s Central Region over the past eight years, the Board is extremely pleased that Paul will be our new CEO. Paul’s extensive acquisition, development, and operating experience coupled with his superb leadership style has earned him the respect of the Board and the entire Howard Hughes team. Paul’s efficient operating approach, along with our headquarters move from Dallas to Houston, will enable Howard Hughes to be a more focused, profitable, and free-cash-flow-generative company.”
The company noted Layne’s track record: during his eight-year tenure at Howard Hughes he identified and led development projects totaling more than $1.2 billion across office, retail, apartment, hotel and storage assets in The Woodlands. Those developments helped increase The Woodlands’ net operating income (NOI) nearly eightfold to more than $104 million in 2019. More recently, Layne led development of 110 North Wacker in Chicago, a Class AAA, 56-story office tower that is about 69 percent pre-leased and was estimated to be completed in October 2020.
Oct. 20, 2019 Realty News Report Copyright 2019
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