It's official: Mills Corp. for sale.

The Mills Corporation issued a statement last week indicating that it is moving ahead with a sale of the company, ending speculation that the embattled REIT may try to resist the auctioning block and repair its financial woes.

The statement, which revealed that June 13 was the date on which interested parties were to submit indications of interest for a potential acquisition, was one of the first to part with the somewhat ambiguous language the company has often used in recent months to describe how it will deal with its situation.

Mills has stated frequently that it had been exploring strategic alternatives, a somewhat ambiguous term that most analysts interpreted as meaning a sale of the company.

But then in April, Mills successfully refinanced one of its malls, Sawgrass Mills, which produced a higher than expected valuation of the asset and prompted Bank of America Securities to revise its estimate of the company's NAV and raise its price target for Mills stock to $32 per share. Similar such refinancings seemed like they could go a long way towards alleviating Mills' money troubles, but many analysts expressed doubt that most of Mills assets would yield as much value as Sawgrass Mills.

Nonetheless, a month later, talk resumed of a potential Mills comeback when the REIT took out a bridge loan with Goldman Sachs to recapitalize its debt.

That move provoked some skepticism among analysts as well, however, and some indicated it would only give the company the breathing room to fend off bargain basement offers but still lead to an inevitable sale. Despite the strong hints, last week's statement comes as perhaps the most concrete indication of the company's intentions. It will also probably be the company's last official communication to the public regarding a sale before a finished deal is announced.

"The Mills Corporation does not expect to make any further announcements regarding its exploration of strategic alternatives until the process is completed or abandoned," the statement said.

Mills has been plagued in recent months by accounting restatements, delayed earnings reports, loan defaults, the cancellation of a number of development projects in its pipeline, layoffs, and an ongoing SEC investigation.

Mills' troubles prompted a highly publicized run on two German open-end funds in January operated by real estate company KanAm, a firm with which Mills co-owns a number of properties and development projects including its $1.2 billion development Meadowlands Xanadu, which is currently being constructed in East Rutherford, New Jersey.