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MONROE — Simon Property Group Inc. has agreed to sell the Cincinnati Premium Outlets or Prime Outlets-Jeffersonville after reaching a tentative settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.
The FTC began investigating Simon Property Group when it announced a definitive agreement to acquire 22 outlet malls for about $2.3 billion from Prime Outlets Acquisition Co. LLC last December, including the mall in Jeffersonville, said Joe Lipinsky, staff attorney for the FTC, on Tuesday.
Les Morris, a spokesman for the property management group, had no comment Tuesday. He said the case is open for public comment until Dec. 10.
“At least in southwest Ohio, they have to sell their Prime Outlets they bought or the Cincinnati Premium Outlets,” Lipinsky said. “We thought those two were the two closest competitors in southwest Ohio.”
The request was made to preserve outlet center competition in the region by sending a consent order to Simon before it closed on the sale of the Jeffersonville mall at the end of August. Part of the consent order also requested the mall operator drop radius restrictions on property tenants in Chicago and Orlando, according to the FTC. Unlike Chicago and Orlando, there were no suitable substitutes for tenants in southwest Ohio besides the two Simon outlet centers, Lipinsky said.
Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group has 180 days from Dec. 10 — when a final agreement is reached after a public comment period — to find a buyer.
“We as staff believe outlet malls are a separate product market than other malls,” he added. “So if you combined both of them there would be no option.”
Cincinnati Premium Outlets opened in August of last year. The deal on the Jeffersonville outlet mall closed in August 2010, which Lipinsky said means Simon never controlled it. Because a settlement was reached in principle before the close, a complaint wasn’t filed with federal court, he said.
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