Westfield Corporation
 | |
| Public | |
| Traded as |
ASX: WFD OTC Pink: WFGPY |
| Industry |
Property development Shopping centre management |
| Predecessor | Westfield Group |
| Founded | 1960 (Westfield Development Corporation lists on the Sydney Stock Exchange) |
| Founder |
Frank Lowy John Saunders |
| Headquarters | Level 29, 85 Castlereagh Street, Sydney, Australia |
Area served |
United States United Kingdom |
Key people |
Frank P. Lowy AC, Chairman Brian Schwartz, Deputy Chairman Steven M Lowy AM, Co-CEO Peter Lowy, Co-CEO, Michael Gutman OBE, President & COO |
| Revenue | 635.5million (2014) |
| Total assets | $19.6bn (2014) |
Number of employees | 2,000 in United States, United Kingdom, Australia staff worldwide (2014)[1] |
| Subsidiaries | Westfield Management Limited, Westfield America Management Limited, and others |
| Website | Westfield Corporation homepage |
Westfield Corporation is a shopping centre company with retail destinations in England and the United States. It was created in June 2014 when Westfield Group separated its Australian and New Zealand businesses from its international operations.
The corporation undertakes ownership, development, design, construction, funds/asset management, property management, leasing, and marketing activities for its centres. It is listed on the Australian Stock Exchange and has a shopping centre portfolio that includes investment interests in 40 shopping centres across the United States and Europe, encompassing around 7,500 retail outlets and total assets under management in excess of $28.5 billion. It also operates Westfield Labs, an technology and design arm based inside the Westfield San Francisco Centre.
History
The Westfield Corporation has origins in the western suburbs of Sydney. The first development was named "Westfield Place", and opened in July 1959 in Blacktown.[2] 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.[2]
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.[3]
The expansion into the United States began with the purchase of the Trumbull Shopping Park in Connecticut in 1977, and was followed by three centers in California, Michigan, and Connecticut in 1980 and three centers in California, New Jersey, and Long Island, New York in 1986.[3] In 1994, Westfield joined together with General Growth and Whitehall Real Estate to purchase 19 centers for US$1 billion. The company built considerable holdings on the east coast and in California before expanding in the Mid-West. By 2005, the company owned centrers in 15 US states.[3]
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.[4]
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.
Properties
Westfield currently has interests in 32 shopping malls in the United States, three in the United Kingdom, and one project under development in Italy.
See also
References
- ↑ "Westfield Career Page" (Press release). Westfield Group. 16 February 2011. Retrieved 11 September 2014.
- 1 2 "Westfield History" (pdf). About us. p. 14. Retrieved 5 January 2007.
|chapter=ignored (help) - 1 2 3 Sammartino, André; Van Ruth, Frances (2007). "The Westfield Group". In Dick, H.; Merrett, D. The Internationalisation Strategies of Small-Country Firms: The Australian Experience of Globalisation. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. pp. 308–318.
- ↑ Gibson, Anne (23 August 2007). "Countdown under way for Albany supermall rollout". New Zealand Herald.
External links
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