RETAIL giant Westfield has targeted an expansion of its London mall, asset sales in the US and a slow recovery in consumer sentiment across its main markets.
For the year ending December 31, the world's biggest shopping centre owner by value, reported a $1.1 billion profit, up from a loss a year ago.
The figures were adjusted for the restructure last December that saw the creation of the Westfield Retail Trust, which owns half of the group's Australian and New Zealand shopping assets.
The only dark cloud was the impact of the currency where, the average Australian dollar exchange rate appreciated by some 15 per cent and 17 per cent compared to the US dollar and British pound, respectively.
Due to the impact of these exchange movements, operational segment earnings were 1.5 per cent lower than the 2009 result but were up 1.4 per cent, on a currency adjusted basis.
Investors sold the stock down yesterday by 10¢ to $9.82.
Westfield's joint managing director, Peter Lowy, also confirmed yesterday that there was a large quantity of buyers in the US - from sovereign wealth funds to pension funds - that wanted a foothold in the retail property sector.
''At the moment there is more demand than supply and we believe the institutional buyers are back,'' Mr Lowy said.
''They see retail property as offering long-term stable returns, particularly with malls that have good management. The sort of return, of about 8 per cent, is tailor-made to the mall industry.''
Mr Lowy said joint ventures with US funds are being reviewed for some of Westfield's non-core US assets, although he declined to name any specific malls.
Analysts said the results were in line with expectations as some of the figures had been flagged when the new trust was floated late last year.
In releasing the data Westfield reconfirmed its guidance for 2011 of 74.6¢ for operational EPS and 48.4¢ for distribution (adjusted for a full year of the new trust).
For the first time the group also provided guidance for funds from operations per share of 64¢-65¢. It will now report its figures in this form.
The guidance of comparative net operating income growth for the US is 2.5-3.5 per cent which was in line with its US peers and for Australia growth was 3-4 per cent.
Joint managing director Steven Lowy said there were signs of a recovery in Australia with its new Sydney mall going well with stage 2 to open this year.
In Britain, the group plans to expand its Westfield London shopping centre later this year as well as open a new site at Stratford, adjacent to the London 2012 Olympics athletes village. Mr Lowy said Westfield's development pipeline was about $10 billion, of which it will spend up to $900 million completing projects in the next 18 months.
Winston Samutt, managing director of Maxim Asset Management, said: ''The result was as expected, but there was no news that would spark a re-rating at this stage.''
