article on bbc

Westfield shopping centre firm to focus on Australia

Malls in the US, UK and New Zealand provide half of Westfield's income
Shopping centre group Westfield is to invest more in Australian developments after projects were put on hold during the global financial crisis.

New projects include an office tower in its Sydney City development worth 350m Australian dollars ($314m; 200m).

However, Westfield is "cautious" about restarting overseas development.

The firm reported a loss of A$458m for 2009 after being hit by write-downs on property values, but this was less than the A$2.2bn loss it made in 2008.

Westfield took a A$3.5bn write-down after revaluing its property portfolio of 119 shopping centres across Australia, the US, the UK and New Zealand.

However, Westfield's operational earnings, which reflect underlying performance excluding items such as revaluations, rose 6.2% to A$2.06bn.

The company also said that 97.2% of its properties were leased, the highest level since September 2008.

Westfield finished building four major new sites in 2009, one in New Zealand and three in California.

Its big developments for 2010 are the A$1.2bn Sydney City project and the 1.45bn Stratford site in East London, next to the 2012 Olympic Park.

Westfield group managing director Steven Lowy said these developments were making excellent progress "with over 50% of the area of each project now either leased or committed".