his name is milton cooper. you may not know him, but his company is the biggest owner of strip shopping centers in the world. we'll see how he revolutionized commercial real estate financing, letting all investors buy a slab of rental property. "nightly business report" presents: "innovators in business," featuring milton cooper, king of the reit. "nightly business report" is made possible by: this program is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by wpbt >> susie: hello, everyone, and welcome to this special edition of "nightly business report:" "innovators in business." whether it's general electric or ibm, wall street is where businesses come to raise billions of dollars. but convincing investors to buy in isn't easy, especially if it's into commercial real estate. in 1991, milton cooper did just that when he came here to the new york stock exchange. by using securities called real estate investment trusts, or reits, he got the cash he needed

they were tough times for milton cooper's shopping center company, kimco realty. deeply in debt, the firm badly needed to raise cash. >> real estate is a very capital intensive business. and we watched the manic- depressive mood swings of financial institutions-- they had money, they didn't have money. >> susie: developer sam zell ran into the same problem. >> i remember, in the early days, calling institutions and their response was, "we don't invest in real estate. we don't buy real estate companies." >> susie: that's when cooper came up with a radical plan-- he decided to take kimco public with a stock offering. >> an i.p.o. gives you permanent, non-fickle capital. and it also creates an entity that could continue indefinitely, and motivate-- have shares that could be given away, stock options, motivate people. those were the principal advantages. >> susie: so, was it your idea? >> going public was not new-- there was public companies. what was new-- it was very difficult for real estate companies to become public. because real estate was such a dirty word, and

we profile a legend in commercial real estate: milton cooper. while you may not know him, his company is the biggest owner of strip shopping centers in the world. he pioneered the real estate investment trust or reit, which lets even small investors buy into rental property projects. we hope you'll join us for an in-depth look at this business innovator, milton cooper. >> susie: that's "nightly business report" for friday, february 18. i'm susie gharib. goodnight, everyone and have a great weekend. we hope to see all of you again next week. "nightly business report" is made possible by: this program was made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by wpbt captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org captioning by vitac, underwritten by fireman's fund >>> president obama dines and chats with silicon valley execs the same week a report shows a slight improvement in the valley's job outlook. a 45-year-old tax break for farmers to keep them from turning their land into housing i

his name is milton cooper. you may not know him, but his company is the biggest owner of strip shopping centers in the world. we'll see how he revolutionized commercial real estate financing, letting all investors buy a slab of rental property. "nightly business report" presents: "innovators in business," featuring milton cooper, king of the reit. "nightly business report" is made possible by:

his name is milton cooper. you may not know him, but his company is the biggest owner of strip shopping centers in the world. we'll see how he revolutionized commercial real estate financing, letting all investors buy a slab of rental property. "nightly business report" presents: "innovators in business," featuring milton cooper, king of the reit. "nightly business report" is made possible by: