When retailers suffer, so do mall owners

General Growth Properties (ironic name), the second-biggest owner of shopping malls, declared bankruptcy this week, a victim of the ripple effects from the battering of their retail tenants. The company had $25 billion in debt, much of it coming due next year, and had bought out Rouse Company for $12.6 billion in 2004.

As more stores have closed, mall vacancies are at their highest point in almost a decade, according to Reis, a research company, which said the vacancy rate at the end of 2008 was 7.1 percent, compared with 5.8 percent at the end of 2007.

That has left many of the roughly 1,500 malls in the United States groping for a solution — any solution — to their woes. Some have converted retail space into office space. Others have drastically lowered rents for prized tenants, agreeing to cut deals to keep revenue flowing. Some have simply gone dark.

Shares in General Growth, which closed on Wednesday at $1.05, have fallen 97 percent over the past 12 months.

Down 97% -- sounds like some of my investments.