It was 1996 when the Rouse Co. looked westward and embarked on an ambitious expansion.
The company that had created the community of Columbia and pieced together one of the largest and best-performing mall portfolios in the nation was eyeing the Nevada real estate amassed by the late billionaire Howard Hughes. The vast holdings stretched from The Strip in Las Vegas to the growing desert suburbs.
To help cement the complicated $520 million deal that would bring Rouse one of its ritziest malls, Fashion Show, and the tony planned community of Summerlin, the company turned to Deutsche Bank AG. It sent a young investment banker named Thomas J. DeRosa, who would participate in sensitive negotiations with Hughes' heirs, help craft a plan to pay them and persuade European investors to join in.
Anthony W. Deering, Rouse's chief executive, was impressed.
"He got this very complex deal closed," Deering said of DeRosa. "At the time I jokingly said `Why don't you come work for the Rouse Co.?' He wanted to stay at Deutsche Bank. But I did keep in touch with him. It took seven more years to decide the time was right."
DeRosa finally joined Rouse in September, as vice chairman and chief financial officer. Not only is DeRosa the first outsider to enter the company's top executive ranks, but he is also the acknowledged front-runner to replace Deering.
Those who know DeRosa acknowledged that his expertise in investment banking is a valuable asset for the real estate company. But it was his polish and ability to form and build relationships that propelled him to the No. 2 job at Rouse, they said.
During a recent interview, a smiling DeRosa said he has already made friends and allies at a company where the average tenure is 20 years. He wants the chief executive's job, held by only three men since James Rouse founded the company in 1939.
"I have a shot at it. Why not? I'm sure it's one of the reasons Tony Deering brought me here," DeRosa said. "If you've been here 15 years, you're a newcomer, but I don't feel like a newcomer."
In coming to Rouse, DeRosa, 45, became a key piece of a continuing shake-up at a company analysts have often described as staid. They have criticized Rouse management for resisting change and new blood, for big spending on development and debt and for the stock price totaling less than the value of company's assets.
