Summa Corporation

Summa Corporation is a holding company created in 1972 by Howard Hughes after he sold the Hughes Tool Company through a public stock offering. Hughes used Summa to hold his aeronautic divisions, television broadcasting stations, and real estate properties including hotels and casinos in Las Vegas, Nevada. In forming Summa, some key people in Hughes' corporations went with Hughes Tool Company, while others remained with Summa. Hughes died intestate on April 5, 1976, resulting in a prolonged legal battle over his estate between his associates and relatives. William R. Lummis, a cousin of Hughes, along with a long-time Hughes corporation employee William E. Rankin, managed Summa after Hughes' death.

Summa's assets were liquidated by the end of 1976, and later transitioned into developing and managing mines and real estate throughout Nevada. This includes the master-planned community of Summerlin, named after Hughes' paternal grandmother. Hughes had purchased twenty-five thousand acres of land west of Las Vegas in 1952, and after Summa’s announcement of its development in 1988, the first residents moved into Summerlin in 1991. Summa renamed itself as The Howard Hughes Corporation in 1994, was sold to the Rouse Company in 1996, and was acquired by General Growth Properties (GGP) in 2004. GGP filed for bankruptcy in 2009, resulting in The Howard Hughes Corporation reforming as a spin-off company. The company currently continues developing real estate throughout the United States.

Sources:

"History." Summerlin. December 2020. Accessed March 3, 2022. https://summerlin.com/history/

Manning, Mary. "Howard Hughes: A revolutionary recluse." The Las Vegas Sun. May 15, 2008. Accessed March 3, 2022. https://lasvegassun.com/news/2008/may/15/how-vegas-went-mob-corporate/

"Our Company." The Howard Hughes Corporation. 2020. Accessed March 3, 2022. https://www.howardhughes.com/our-company

Tran, Mark. "Rouse pays $500m for last assets of Howard Hughes." The Guardian. February 24, 1996. Accessed March 3, 2022. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/88515259/rouse-pays-500m-for-last-assets-of/

Weinmann, Kay. "General Growth Properties Completes Spinoff of The Howard Hughes Corporation." General Growth Properties, Inc. November 9, 2010. Accessed March 3, 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20120325201619/http://investor.ggp.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=528861