History
The first development of the Westfield Corporation was named "Westfield Place", and opened in July 1959[9] in Blacktown. The name Westfield is derived from "west", related to the West-Sydney location, and "field", due to having been located on subdivided farmland. The centre was opened by John Saunders and Frank Lowy.[10]
The company was floated on the Australian Stock Exchange in 1960 and built another five centres in New South Wales before expanding into Victoria and Queensland in 1966–67.[11]
The expansion into the United States began with the purchase of the Trumbull Shopping Park in Connecticut in 1977, and was followed by three centres in California, Michigan, and Connecticut in 1980 and three centres in California, New Jersey, and Long Island, New York, in 1986.[11] In 1994, Westfield collaborated with General Growth and Whitehall Real Estate to purchase 19 centres for US$1 billion. By 2005, the company owned centres in 15 US states.[11]
In the 1990s, Westfield began a major expansion to New Zealand, where they mostly bought existing shopping centres of the Fletchers company and progressively rebranded them. In 2007, with Westfield Albany, the company opened a new centre in the country.[12]
On 9 May 2006, Westfield announced the sale of eight United States shopping centres which it deemed to fit outside its strategic plan, to Centro Properties Group.[13]
In 2010, the Westfield Group split 50% of its Australian and New Zealand assets into the Westfield Retail Trust, trading on the Australian Stock Exchange as WRT. This trust was folded into the Scentre Group during the 2014 split.
In December 2017, the Westfield Board announced that it was recommending a takeover of the company by Unibail-Rodamco, one of the largest real estate companies in Europe headquartered in Paris, for a reported $24.8 billion USD. The takeover was completed, and the parent company was renamed Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, in June 2018[3][4].
