Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm
To the Partners of Simon Property Group, L.P. and the Board of Directors of Simon Property Group, Inc.
Opinion on the Financial Statements We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheets of Simon Property Group, L.P. (the Partnership) as of December 31, 2022 and 2021, the related consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive income, equity and cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended December 31, 2022 and the related notes and financial statement schedule listed in the Index at Item 15(a) (collectively referred to as the “consolidated financial statements”). In our opinion, the consolidated financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Partnership at December 31, 2022 and 2021, and the results of its operations and its cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended December 31, 2022, in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. We also have audited, in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (PCAOB), the Partnership’s internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2022, based on criteria established in Internal Control – Integrated Framework issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (2013 Framework) and our report dated February 23, 2023, expressed an unqualified opinion thereon. Basis for Opinion These financial statements are the responsibility of the Partnership’s management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Partnership’s financial statements based on our audits. We are a public accounting firm registered with the PCAOB and are required to be independent with respect to the Partnership in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the PCAOB. We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud. Our audits included performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to error or fraud, and performing procedures that respond to those risks. Such procedures included examining, on a test basis, evidence regarding the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. Our audits also included evaluating the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the financial statements. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinion. Critical Audit Matters The critical audit matters communicated below are matters arising from the current period audit of the financial statements that were communicated or required to be communicated to the audit committee and that: (1) relate to accounts or disclosures that are material to the financial statements and (2) involved our especially challenging, subjective or complex judgments. The communication of critical audit matters does not alter in any way our opinion on the consolidated financial statements, taken as a whole, and we are not, by communicating the critical audit matters below, providing separate opinions on the critical audit matters or on the accounts or disclosures to which they relate. Evaluation of Investment Properties for Impairment Description of the Matter At December 31, 2022, the Partnership’s consolidated net investment properties totaled $21.8 billion. As discussed in Note 3 to the consolidated financial statements, the Partnership reviews investment properties for impairment on a property-by-property basis to identify and evaluate events or changes in circumstances that indicate the carrying value of an investment property may not be recoverable. The Partnership estimates undiscounted cash flows of an investment property using observable and unobservable inputs such as historical and forecasted cash flows, operating income before depreciation and amortization, estimated capitalization rates, leasing prospects and local market information.
Auditing management’s evaluation of investment properties for impairment was complex due to the estimation uncertainty in determining the undiscounted cash flows of an investment property. In particular, the impairment evaluation for investment properties was sensitive to significant assumptions such as forecasted cash flows and operating income before depreciation and
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