Who would have thought?, page-3

Hi Adam, you've mentioned you had a stake in WFD and consider it part of your higher quality core holdings. What are your thoughts on the recent share price performance and has anything changed your sentiments?

@jiantan86 ,

By sheer coincidence, almost the very minute that you submitted your post, I was clicking my mouse on the BUY button to add to my Westfield holdings.

The stock has been caught in a bit of a perfect storm over the past 12 months, I think:

- bond markets going through a series of periodic conniptions, which impacts the market pricing for bond proxies such as WFD,
- the weaker British pound, post-Brexit, and
- broader retail sector aversion (in Australia, that is, despite this having no bearing on Westfield's operations which are exclusively offshore).

The result of these macroeconomic events has left Westfield trading on a P/E multiple of around 16.5x, and a dividend yield of ~4.5%.

It's not often that WFD trades at valuation metrics on a par with the rest of the broader market.

The last time that I can recall that being the case was for a brief period in late 2013.

So, while some commentators are calling (once again) for the retail cycle to be dead and buried, I have heard this said many times over the past 2 decades, only to find that the destination shopping experience is not only still part of the cultural DNA of affluent, urbanised Westerners, but is increasingly so over time.