Mr. Alexander: As you mentioned, the company traces its roots back to a supermarket company that was started by my great-grandfather in 1901. The real estate company was incorporated as a separate company but very related to the supermarket company in 1948. And about the middle 1950s, my father, Stanford Alexander, got involved in the real estate side of things, which was really about the time the shopping center industry started. It was a little bit before the International Council of Shopping Centers was formed. We continued to build and develop principally supermarket-anchored shopping centers through the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and then the part of the family that was running the supermarket company elected to sell out, which they did in 1980. We went through some different restructuring options for the real estate company and elected to become a publicly trade real estate investment trust, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1985. We have continued to grow and deal with the various business cycles since then, but have generally speaking continued to focus on the supermarket, and basic goods and services tenants, as we did when we were founded some 60 years ago.
TWST: How would you describe your overall business strategy and focus today? Retail is pretty broad, as you know.
Mr. Alexander: Retail is pretty broad. We have a few centers that are a little more upscale, principally in the Houston area - properties that we know and love, like the River Oak Center, which is probably the third oldest shopping center in the country. But the vast majority, about 68%, of our net operating income comes from centers that have a supermarket component to them. Especially in these troubled economic times, we are very happy to be with a very diversified tenant base. Our largest tenant is Kroger, which is under 2% of our revenues. It's also a tenant base that sells a lot of basic goods and services, so it's a lot of supermarkets, stores like Ross, T.J. Maxx, Dollar Tree, and other tenants that are selling basic goods and services. Everybody is very focused on good value in this economy, so on a relative basis, it's a much better part of the world to be operating in.
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