Westfield’s shopping centres are operating close to capacity

The group, which is developing a site at Stratford close to the London Olympic village, reported net profits of 651m Australian dollars (£414m) for the first six months of the year, down 32 per cent from a year earlier.

Westfield said it is looking to sell about 2bn Australian dollars (£1.3bn) worth of non-core assets over a period of time to fund future expansion, and a portion of the sales could materialise by the end of this year.

“Our operating performance during the half year was particularly pleasing, notwithstanding the current environment, with income growth and comparable speciality sales growth in each of our regions,” said joint chief executive Steven Lowy.

The group, which first entered the UK market in 2000, now has centres in cities including Belfast, Derby and Birmingham. Its centre in west London opened in 2008 and the group said sales there in the first six months of the year grew by 20 per cent, putting it on course to achieve almost £1bn of sales in 2011.

However, Westfield gave no detail on its plans for a centre in Bradford, which has been stalled by the global downturn, other than to say it is undertaking pre-development work on an 11bn Australian dollar (£7bn) pipeline, which includes Bradford.

The group’s Stratford site is due to open on September 13, and the developer said it is 95 per cent leased or committed.

“We are extremely pleased at how well the Stratford project has leased up,” said Mr Lowy.

“We have assembled an exceptional tenancy mix which has more than exceeded our vision, particularly for fashion, food, entertainment and leisure, and it will be the next chapter in retail development for London.”

Globally, its portfolio was 96.7 per cent leased, with its US stores recording an occupancy rate of 92 per cent.

The company recently announced plans for a retail development at New York’s new World Trade Center, as well as plans for developments in Milan and Brazil.

“We are focussed on investing in shopping centres with strong franchise characteristics that are resilient through economic cycles, and achieve high levels of sales productivity and profitability for our retailers.

“We are confident in the future of the group’s business model and we continue to execute our strategy by redeploying capital in order to deliver sustainable earnings growth and higher return on equity,” said Mr Lowy.

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