Westfield Group

Overview

Westfield Group

type	Public
genre	Shopping malls
founder	John Saunders Frank Lowy
defunct	2014
successors	Scentre Group Westfield Corporation
location city	Sydney, New South Wales
location country	Australia
area served	Australia United States United Kingdom New Zealand Italy
key people	Peter Lowy (co-CEO) Steven Lowy (co-CEO)
industry	Real estate investment trusts
revenue	▲ US$833 million (2014)
operating income	▲ US$391 million (2014)
net income	▲ US$461 million (2014)
assets	▲ US$28.5 billion (2014)
num employees	2,000+ (2014)‡R1R‡
homepage	westfieldcorp.com

Westfield Group was an Australian shopping centre company that existed from 1960 to 2014, when it split into two independent companies: Scentre Group, which owns and operates the Australian and New Zealand Westfield shopping centre portfolio; and Westfield Corporation, which continued to own and operate the American and European centre portfolio until it merged to form Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield.[2]

History

The company was floated on the Australian Securities Exchange in 1960 and built five centres in New South Wales before expanding into Victoria and Queensland in 1966–67.[3] For the first half of 1971, Westfield reported earnings of $886,382.[4]

Operations

Despite the Westfield Group's asset dimensions, the Westfield Group was strongly controlled by the Lowy Family Group, including non-executive chairman, Frank Lowy, one of its founders.[8] Lowy's two younger sons, Steven and Peter, were joint managing directors.

Australia

A feature of ticketless parking at Westfield Miranda, Westfield Hurstville, Westfield Bondi Junction and Westfield Doncaster was that SMS alerts were provided for when the shopper's three free hours of parking were about to expire and when the shopper left the centres. This feature was later removed due to concerns that the system could be used to track the movements of others by giving the wrong car numberplate on registration of the phone number.[9]

United States

Westfield entered the United States market in 1977. In September 2003 the company received $17.3 million as a party in the insurance claim following the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.[10] On 18 February 2006, the Los Angeles Times reported that Westfield had agreed to acquire 15 stores from Federated Department Stores, all but three in southern California.[11] On 9 May 2006, Westfield sold eight United States shopping centres to Centro Properties Group.[6]

New Zealand

Westfield entered the New Zealand market in 1997 and acquired an interest in the St Lukes Group portfolio in 1998. Westfield malls became by far the most numerous chain in New Zealand, with six of its 12 centres in Auckland, including their largest development located in Albany. Westfield had NZ$2.8 billion in assets under management in New Zealand.[12] In mid-2012, Westfield sold its 50% share of Westfield Shore City in Takapuna on Auckland's North Shore,[12] now known as Shore City Shopping Centre.

United Kingdom

As of 2014, before Westfield Corporation was created, Westfield had an interest in two shopping centres in England and Northern Ireland. It's most significant asset was Westfield's 50% partnership[13] in the £1.6b[14] Westfield London development in Shepherd's Bush, West London.

Westfield owned the Westfield Stratford City and also controlled the Stratford City redevelopment project next to 2012 Olympic park in Stratford in east London, having acquired the 75% of the project that it did not already own.[15]

Westfield was the developer behind the troubled Broadway shopping development in Bradford after acquiring Stannifer in 2004.[16]

Westfield Group

History

Operations

Australia

United States

New Zealand

United Kingdom

Relationship with tenants

Relationship with competition

External links

References