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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 with Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield.
Westfield Group undertook ownership, development, design, construction, funds/asset management, property management, leasing, and marketing activities. The multinational company was Public company on the Australian Securities Exchange and had interests in and operated one of the world's largest shopping centre portfolios with investment interests in 103 shopping centres across Australia, the United States, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Italy, France, Sweden, Austria, Germany, Spain, Croatia, Poland, Czech Republic and Brazil, encompassing around 23,000 retail outlets and total assets under management in excess of A$63 billion.
The company was floated on the Australian Securities Exchange in 1960 and built another five centres in New South Wales before expanding into Victoria and Queensland in 1966–67. For the first half of 1971, Westfield reported earnings of $886,382.
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. In 1994 Westfield joined with General Growth and Whitehall Real Estate to purchase 19 centres for US$1 billion. Westfield seems to form clusters of centres on particular cities or within a small number of states. They built considerable holdings on the East Coast and in California before expanding into the Midwest. By 2005, the company owned centres in 15 US states.
In the 1990s, Westfield began a major expansion to New Zealand, where they mostly bought existing shopping centres of the Fletchers company, progressively rebranding them. Only in 2007, with Westfield Albany, did the company open a fully new centre in the country.
On 9 May 2006, Westfield announced the sale of eight United States shopping centres which it deemed to fit outside its strategic plan, to Vicinity Centres.
In April 2012 it was announced that the Westfield Group would sell seven non-core property assets to Starwood Capital Group for A$1 billion and one other property to an undisclosed buyer for A$147 million. The funds would be used to repay debt and invest in businesses offering higher return. The sales were expected to be completed by mid–2012.
In 2015, a group of terrorists wanted to blow up the Westfield London but they were stopped by police. They wanted the bombing to be around the same day as that of the 2005 London attacks anniversary.
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 removed in 2016 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.
By far its most significant asset was Westfield's 50% partnership in the Pound sterling1.6b Westfield London development in Shepherd's Bush, West London. The development included the construction of a new railway station for the London Overground and Southern services, and a new entrance for the London Underground station.
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.
Westfield was the developer behind the troubled Broadway shopping development in Bradford after acquiring Stannifer in 2004.
On 9 October 2007 Westfield opened the £340m extension and refurbishment of Derby's Eagle Centre, which saw the shopping centre rebranded Derbion. The centre was subsequently sold to Intu in 2014.
Westfield were reviewing plans with the Whitgift Foundation to rebuild the Whitgift Centre in Croydon in South London.
Also in Australia, Westfield fee structures and policies were criticised by retailers who operated in centres that had been taken over by the company. Retailers suggested that when centres were acquired there should be more cooperation between the new operators and existing tenants in bringing shops up to the corporate standards of the Westfield Group, and increases in rent (required to operate a shopping centre with high standards of fittings and services) should be staged with the required improvements in fittings.
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