The Macerich Company (MAC) Stock Price & How to Invest

The Macerich Company, founded in 1964 and headquartered in Santa Monica, California, owns, leases and redevelops regional town centers in dense, higher-income US markets. Its holdings cluster in California, the Pacific Northwest, the Phoenix and Scottsdale corridor, and the stretch from metro New York to Washington, DC, with flagships including Tysons Corner Center, Queens Center, Scottsdale Fashion Square, Washington Square and Green Acres Mall. After several years of selling and handing back weaker assets, the portfolio sat at roughly 38 to 39 retail centers and about 40 million square feet as of the second quarter of 2026, down from 48 million square feet earlier in the program. Trailing 12-month tenant sales for spaces under 10,000 square feet reached about $919 per square foot, up from roughly $849 a year earlier, and trailing revenue runs near $1.03 billion.

The investment picture is a leverage story wrapped around an operating recovery. Under CEO Jackson Hsieh, the Path Forward Plan has completed about $1.3 billion of dispositions, returned troubled centers to their lenders, bought out joint-venture partners on core assets, and pivoted to offense with the roughly $272 million Annapolis Mall purchase in May 2026. Funding that shift required real dilution: a 22.08 million share offering at $21.00, a 14 million share forward offering priced at $23.90, and a $675 million 2.25% exchangeable note due 2031. Net debt to adjusted EBITDA improved to about 7.3x in the second quarter, or roughly 6.8x pro forma for the forward equity, against a long-term target near 6x. Second-quarter FFO as adjusted came in at $0.35 per share on $249.7 million of revenue, while GAAP results stayed in the red at a $0.10 per share loss, which is normal for a depreciation-heavy landlord. At roughly $24.50 and a market capitalization near $7.0 billion, the shares price in a good deal of the company's own $1.80 to $2.00 per share 2028 FFO ambition.

Dilution is the most concrete cost of the turnaround: two 2026 equity offerings plus a $675 million exchangeable note materially raised the share and unit count, which is why FFO per share has barely moved even as total FFO grew. Tenant credit remains a live drag, with Forever 21's liquidation alone releasing about 570,000 square feet across Macerich centers and Claire's filing again in 2025, so backfilling vacancy is a permanent operating expense rather than a one-time event. Property-level debt still bites: the $76 million loan secured by Twenty Ninth Street in Boulder sat in default after its February maturity, and while a single mortgage default is not a corporate solvency issue, it shows the asset-by-asset workout is unfinished. GAAP net losses persist and the dividend, at $0.17 per quarter or roughly $0.68 annualized, was cut deeply from pre-2020 levels and is covered by FFO rather than by earnings. Finally, the valuation itself is a risk: near 16 times trailing FFO and roughly 13 times the midpoint of the company's own 2028 target, the shares already assume the plan lands close to schedule, so a missed disposition, a rate move, or a weaker consumer would hit the multiple and the estimates at the same time.

16 analysts publish price targets on MAC, averaging $26.62 against a $24.71 price as of August 2026, or +7.7%. The published targets run from $19.00 to $30.00, a moderate spread, and the ratings split 9 buy, 6 hold, 1 sell. Over the last six months there have been 12 raises and 0 cuts among the published actions. A price target is what an analyst published on a date, not a prediction, and sell-side ratings skew positive across the whole market.

Read the full MAC forecast and price target for the target table, the recent rating actions by firm, and how the consensus has shifted.

We give no verdict on The Macerich Company. Both cases are real, which is why the question is contested at all, so here is the strongest version of each.

The case for buying. Deleveraging toward the 6x goal. Reducing leverage is the stated centerpiece of the Path Forward Plan, and progress has been measurable: net debt to adjusted EBITDA fell to about 7.3x in the second quarter of 2026, down more than 1.5 turns since the plan began, and lands near 6.8x pro forma for the forward equity proceeds. The most optimistic published target, $30.00, assumes this works close to its best case.

The case against. Dilution is the most concrete cost of the turnaround: two 2026 equity offerings plus a $675 million exchangeable note materially raised the share and unit count, which is why FFO per share has barely moved even as total FFO grew. The most pessimistic target, $19.00, is roughly what MAC is worth if this bites instead.

Read the full bull and bear case on MAC, including what would have to change to break either one. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

A simple financial snapshot. These are approximations and refresh quarterly; for current figures see The Macerich Company's investor relations page or your broker.

• Revenue (TTM): ~$1.03B (Q2 2026: ~$249.7M, first half: ~$491.2M)
• FFO as adjusted per share: ~$0.35 in Q2 2026 and ~$0.70 for the first half, versus ~$1.50 for full-year 2025
• GAAP net loss per share: ~$(0.10) in Q2 2026, ~$(0.24) for the first half
• Net debt / adjusted EBITDA: ~7.3x, or ~6.8x pro forma for forward equity, against a ~6x 2028 target
• Total pro-rata debt: ~$6.3B including joint ventures (~$4.8B of consolidated mortgage notes)
• Market cap and dividend: ~$7.0B at ~$24.50, dividend ~$0.68 annualized (~2.8% yield), roughly 16x trailing FFO as adjusted

FFO per share has been close to flat while total FFO rose, because the 2026 equity raises expanded the denominator faster than the operating recovery expanded the numerator. Management's public bridge to $1.80 to $2.00 of 2028 FFO per share leans on the signed-not-open rent pipeline, cheaper refinancing as leverage falls, and yield on the Annapolis and redevelopment spend. Against that target the current price sits near 13 times, so the multiple is doing less work than the execution is.

Other names that sit close to MAC: same theme, named as a direct competitor, or held beside it in the same funds. Each entry says which. Worth a look if you are thinking about diversification within a thesis rather than concentration on one ticker.

There are three common ways to get MAC exposure. Buy shares (or fractional shares) directly at any major broker. Hold an ETF that includes it, which spreads the position across many companies. Or build it into a focused thematic portfolio, so MAC sits alongside other stocks that express the same thesis.

Walnut takes the portfolio route. Describe a thesis where MAC fits (for example “AI infrastructure” or “dividend-growth large-caps”) and the AI proposes 5 to 6 constituents with target weights. You review the plan and fund it through your own broker when you're ready.

New to this? Start with how to invest in stocks, see how to analyze a stock with AI, or compare the best AI stock analyzers.

Macerich is a mall turnaround with genuine leasing momentum trading near 16 times trailing funds from operations, so the leverage path and the 2028 FFO target, rather than any single quarter's occupancy print, are what the valuation rests on.

Whether MAC is worth buying today depends more on your time horizon and what you already hold than on any single call. We walk through valuation, what would have to go right, and the risks in is MAC a buy or a sell?, and where the stock could go from here in the MAC stock forecast.

For income investors, whether MAC pays a dividend and how the payout looks is covered in does MAC pay a dividend? And to weigh MAC against a peer, read the full side-by-side comparisons: MAC vs SPG and MAC vs BN.