It conducts all of its operations through the operating partnership and the management companies.
Net income for Alliance's operating partnership rose 74percentto to $195 million.
The family's economic interest and voting rights were tied up in the operating partnership.
According to Robert Taubman, the shares were issued to align the financial interests of all stakeholders, both in the publicly traded company and the operating partnership.
The building's main tenant, MCI Worldcom, vacated last year; the owner, the Reckson Operating Partnership, has said it will arrange for the relocation of the other tenants.
The restructuring was prompted by the General Motors Pension Trust, which wanted to swap its investment in the company's operating partnership for direct control of 10 malls.
The publicly traded company, Taubman Centers, based in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., is a real estate investment trust that owns a stake in an operating partnership, the Taubman Realty Group.
In its suit, Simon Property is challenging the way the Taubman family obtained its voting equity in Taubman Centers, which is a real estate investment trust that owns a stake in an operating partnership, the Taubman Realty Group.
Taubman Centers has denied that accusation and contends that the restructuring aligned the interests of all shareholders by giving the Taubmans voting rights in the public company equal to their stake in the operating partnership.
For the new business structure to take shape, however, Prime Retail's preferred stockholders had to agree to cash out their holdings.. Separate agreements also had to be made to acquire common stock and preferred units held by members of Prime Retail's operating partnership.
