General Growth Properties Inc., the Chicago-based company that owns and operates both the NorthTown Mall and Spokane Valley Mall here, has reported a decline in fourth-quarter earnings compared with the year-earlier period. 

For all of 2015, though, the company posted net income of $1.36 billion, or $1.43 a share, up sharply from $650 million, or 69 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. 

GGP’s full-year earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization increased 5.4 percent to $2.12 billion from $2.01 billion in 2014.  

For just the latest quarter, the company posted fourth-quarter net income of $190 million, or 20 cents a diluted share, down from $285 million, or 30 cents a share, in the prior-year period. 

However, the company said in its Feb. 1 earnings report that its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization increased 6.5 percent, to $588 million, in the fourth quarter from $553 million in the prior-year period. 

GGP says it had a same-store lease percentage of 97 percent at the quarter’s end. Also, it said that initial rental rates for signed leases that have been inked in the previous 12 months increased about 11 percent compared with rates on expiring leases. 

GGP, a Fortune 500 company, had $2.3 billion in development and redevelopment activities at its properties during the latest quarter. Of that, projects totaling approximately $1.3 billion have opened, $400 million in projects are under construction, and another $600 million in work is in the pipeline.

During the fourth quarter, the company acquired 271,000 of its common shares at a weighted average price of $25 per share, or approximately $6.8 million. During all of 2015, the company acquired about 4.32 million of its common shares at a weighted average price of $25.34 per share, or a total of about $109.5 million.

On Feb. 1, the company’s board of directors declared a first-quarter common stock dividend of 19 cents per share payable on April 29, 2016, to stockholders of record on April 15, 2016. That represents an increase of $0.02 per share over the dividend declared in the 2015 first quarter.