February 11, 2020
Categories:
Commercial Real Estate
Valantis Aristides
7 minute read

Simon is buying Taubman. How to quantify the synergies?

Usually the first considerations when a company acquires another is how to realize economies of scale, cross-marketing
opportunities, and areas of common improvement. If one knew which shoppers visit each location and quantified the
cross-visits between malls then they could make educated decisions about which malls to focus on for improvements,
tenant acquisition, or cross marketing.


With traditional measuring methods this is hard to achieve, but cellphone location data is the perfect fit for such an
exercise.


But not all visitors are created equal. To get the true picture one needs to go a step further and adjust visits by the
purchasing power of the visitors. Hence at Advan we computed the income of each device using its shopping behavior, and
then adjusted the visits and cross-visits by income. Here are our findings.


First, looking at traffic alone, here is the breakdown of traffic by state. Florida has the highest number of visitors
for both Simon and Taubman, and the highest number of cross-visitors: 27% of Simon shoppers also visit a Taubman
mall. California on the other hand (which is the next largest Simon state that has Taubman presence) only sees 3%
cross-visits:


Advan Simon and Taubman traffic January 2020


The picture is similar, but more informative, when taking into account the income of visitors. We see that Florida is
still the largest state, with $590 billion of annual purchasing power across all visitors, of which 28% ($168bn) also
visit Taubman, and California is now #2 in Simon presence at $430bn purchasing power with only $16.5bn of that
cross-shopping at Taubman:


Advan Simon and Taubman traffic by Income January 2020


Of course the full details can be gleaned only when breaking down the above by individual mall, where one can identify
which visitors, and which specific cohorts of visitors (high income/low income, millennials / baby boomers, etc) are
visiting multiple locations, and make educated decisions on where to invest and how to expand the efficacy of each mall.

Valantis Aristides

Valantis has been focused on product management across B2B and B2C SaaS and data analytics, specializing in translating complex data into clear, actionable insights that inform business and investment decisions, product innovation, and customer engagement. His experience includes analyzing mobility trends, credit card transactions, and alternative data to uncover patterns that shape strategy and highlight market opportunities.