Summa Corporation was a holding company for the business interests of

Howard Hughes Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American Aerospace engineering, aerospace engineer, business magnate, film producer, and investor. He was The World's Billionaires, one of the richest and most influential peo ...

after he sold the tool division of Hughes Tool Company in 1972. Its holdings included casino hotels, aviation businesses, and television channels. After Hughes's death in 1976, most of the company's assets were sold off, and it focused on developing the

master-planned community A planned community, planned city, planned town, or planned settlement is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed on previously undeveloped land. This contrasts with settlements that evolve ...

Summerlin, Nevada Summerlin is a master-planned mixed-use development mostly within the city limits of Las Vegas, Nevada. The development covers of the western edge of incorporated Las Vegas sitting at the center-west end of the Las Vegas Valley. Downtown Summ ...

. Summa was renamed as The Howard Hughes Corporation in 1994. It was acquired by

The Rouse Company The Rouse Company was a publicly traded shopping mall and community developer from 1956 until 2004, when GGP Inc., General Growth Properties (GGP) purchased the company. It was founded by Hunter Moss and James Rouse, James W. Rouse in 1939. Begin ...

in 1996.

Properties

This holding company contained Hughes' varied investments including: *

KLAS-TV KLAS-TV (channel 8) is a television station in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, affiliated with CBS and owned by Nexstar Media Group. The station's studios are located on Channel 8 Drive near the northern portion of the Las Vegas Strip in the ...

- the

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

affiliate, reportedly purchased because Hughes was dismayed that the station never played his favorite late-night movies. * Hughes Airwest - a regional airline * Hughes Sports Network * Hughes Helicopters - a former division of

Hughes Aircraft Company The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 by Howard Hughes in Glendale, California, as a division of the Hughes Tool Company. The company produced the Hughes H-4 Hercules air ...

retained by Summa when the remainder of the aircraft business was donated to the

Howard Hughes Medical Institute The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization headquartered in Chevy Chase, Maryland with additional facilities in Ashburn, Virginia. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American busin ...

as its endowment * Sands Hotel * Frontier Hotel and Casino * Landmark Hotel and Casino * Castaways Hotel and Casino *

Desert Inn The Desert Inn, also known as the D.I., was a hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, which operated from April 24, 1950, to August 28, 2000. Designed by architect Hugh Taylor and interior design by Jac Lessman, it was the ...

* Silver Slipper Casino * Xanadu Princess Resort * Hughes Nevada Mining * General American Oil Company * rights to films including '' Scarface'' and '' The Conqueror''

History

Before 1972, Summa Corporation was named Hughes Tool Company. It was established in 1908 as a manufacturer of oil drilling tools. Under the ownership of Howard Hughes, the company expanded over the years into various other businesses, including aviation, media, and casino hotels. In 1972, the company sold its tool business to investors via an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...

as a new entity named Hughes Tool Company. At that time, the parent company changed its name to Summa Corporation. The name "Summa", Latin for "highest", was allegedly chosen by several of Hughes's employees without consulting him first. Hughes was allegedly dissatisfied, and preferred the name "HRH Properties", with the initials standing for both "Howard Robard Hughes" and "Hughes Resort Hotels", but his suggestion was ignored. Howard Hughes died in 1976 at the age of 70, without a valid will. Administrators were appointed, led by his cousin William Lummis. Under Lummis, Summa began to liquidate most of its operations. Summa's money-losing mining interests in Nevada were sold by the end of 1976, while

and Hughes Sports Network were both sold in 1978. Hughes Airwest was sold to Republic Airlines for $38.5 million in October 1980, and Hughes Helicopters was sold to

McDonnell Douglas McDonnell Douglas Corporation was a major American Aerospace manufacturer, aerospace manufacturing corporation and defense contractor, formed by the merger of McDonnell Aircraft and the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967. Between then and its own ...

for $470 million in January 1984. The hotel and casino properties were gradually sold off during the 1980s. As its original businesses were sold, Summa recast itself as a real estate developer, using the vast tracts of undeveloped land Hughes had amassed around Las Vegas as a starting point. In September 1994, Summa Corporation was renamed The Howard Hughes Corporation, both to honor Howard Hughes and to fulfill his original intentions of keeping his name on the business. In February 1996, Hughes's heirs sold the Howard Hughes Corporation to the

Rouse Company The Rouse Company was a publicly traded shopping mall and community developer from 1956 until 2004, when General Growth Properties (GGP) purchased the company. It was founded by Hunter Moss and James W. Rouse in 1939. Beginnings: Moss-Rouse Com ...

for $520 million, plus half of any future profits from the company's undeveloped land holdings. The Rouse Company was, in turn, acquired by

General Growth Properties GGP Inc. (an initialism of General Growth Properties) was an American Commercial property, commercial real estate company and the second-largest shopping mall operator in the United States. It was founded by brothers Martin Bucksbaum, Martin, Ma ...

in November 2004. A new company named The Howard Hughes Corporation was spun off from GGP in 2010 and is now a developer of master-planned communities.

References

{{Authority control Holding companies of the United States Howard Hughes American companies established in 1972 Holding companies established in 1972 Manufacturing companies established in 1972 Technology companies established in 1972 Holding companies disestablished in 1996 Technology companies disestablished in 1996 1972 establishments in Nevada 1996 disestablishments in Nevada Defunct manufacturing companies based in Nevada