It’s pretty good to be CEO of a top-20 strip center owner. In 2020, the average CEO’s compensation hovered around $6.4 million. And, it turns out, they didn’t have to move all that many mountains to earn that kind of paycheck.
From 2014 to 2021, the market cap of these top 20 companies shrank by $4.4 billion. Those that did manage to grow in size only did so through the acquisition of competitor companies.
Take Kimco, for example. In 2021, they bought WRI’s 29 million square foot portfolio. And yet, between 2014 and 2021 Kimco’s GLA only grew by 10 million square feet. This means that were it not for the WRI acquisition, Kimco’s total GLA would have actually contracted by 19 million square feet in those six years. Similarly, Kimco’s market cap appears to have increased by $3.1 billion in that same six-year period. And yet, when we consider that they acquired Weingarten with a $4.8 billion market cap, were it not for that purchase, Kimco would have lost $1.7 billion in value. And yet, Kimco’s stockholders paid 7.6% in general and administrative fee and awarded Kimco’s CEO $7.7 million in compensation for the privilege.
Talk about a herd of big, inefficient elephants in the room.