Cadillac Fairview

The name "Cadillac Fairview" came into existence in 1974 as a result of the merger between Cadillac Development Corporation Ltd and Fairview Corporation.[3] Cadillac Development Corporation was founded by partners Ephraim Diamond (d. 2008), Joseph Berman (1922-2003), and Jack Kamin in Toronto in 1953 as a developers of high-rise apartment buildings. Fairview Corporation was established in 1958 as the real estate division of Cemp Investments, the holding company of the Bronfman family. Before merging, Cadillac and Fairview already had strong ties since 1968.[4] Bronfman-held Cemp Investments sold Cadillac Fairview in 1986.

The company was purchased by the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan in March 2000. In 2006 it expanded its operations to Brazil by buying 46 percent of Multiplan Emprendimentos Imobiliarios SA, a Brazilian shopping center manager worth more than $1 billion.[5] In 2013, it was sued for causing hundreds of birds to die due to the glass panes at one of its Toronto office buildings.[6] It won the case. In 2012, Cadillac Fairview bought out the leases of Sears Canada in five stores for $400 million, including the lease of the flagship Sears at Toronto Eaton Centre.[7] Many of the former Sears locations, including the one at Eaton Centre, became Nordstroms.[8] In 2014, it purchased the Toronto flagship store of Hudson's Bay Company for $650 million.[9]

On September 21, 2015, Cadillac Fairview rebranded its shopping centre properties, adding the prefix "CF" in front of each shopping centre name and phasing out individual mall logos in favour of a standardized logo format and image campaign.[10] In January 2017, Cadillac Fairview sold half of its Vancouver portfolio to the Ontario Pension Board and the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.[1] Financial terms were not disclosed, but the deal involved 4 million square feet of leasable space in the Pacific Centre and 12 office properties. In September 2017, it announced it would become a national partner to the Canadian Olympic Committee.[11]

Cadillac Fairview owns, develops, and manages property, malls and large office and retail spaces across the Western Hemisphere, mostly in North America. Cadillac Fairview has also developed suburban housing, such as the Erin Mills "New Town". Among its Canadian assets are one New Brunswick property, six Quebec properties, twenty-five Ontario properties, two Manitoba properties, eight Alberta properties, and fourteen British Columbia properties.[12]

Cadillac Fairview's malls are generally large and high-quality, with high-end stores and high sales per square foot.[13] For instance, sales at the Toronto Eaton Centre, a CF mall, were $1500 per square foot, while lower-end malls have sales closer to $325 per square foot.[13] Cadillac Fairview has actively tried to sell weak malls, reducing its mall count from a high of 40 to around 20 in 2017.[13]

Notable properties managed by Cadillac Fairview, some co-owned with (or managed on behalf of) other investors, are listed below.

In July 2018, Cadillac Fairview was criticized for having facial recognition software installed on their mall directories, which collect anonymized information of the estimated age and gender of kiosk users.[14]

• Official website