Merger of Westfield’s three listed property trusts
Deutsche Bank, UBS and Grange First Provident were joint lead advisers on the transaction. Other advisers included: ABN AMRO; Merrill Lynch; JPMorgan; Carnegie Wylie; Investec Wentworth; Citigroup; Goldman Sachs; JB Were; Credit Suisse First Boston; and Morgan Stanley
Westfield Group is the Australian-based company formed from the merger of three formerly separately-listed entities: Westfield Trust, Westfield America Trust and Westfield Holdings. The June 2004 tie-up – one of the largest real estate M&A deals in history – created the world’s largest listed retail property group, combining the financial strength and capabilities of each Westfield entity to give the group the necessary scale to pursue global growth opportunities.
The merged group has a A$34bn portfolio of property assets and interests in 123 shopping centres with 19,500 retailers in Australia, New Zealand, the US and the UK. The merger continues the evolution of Westfield’s group structure to create a single, globally integrated financial and operating platform that facilitates growth, gives improved access to capital at a lower cost and provides greater geographic flexibility. As a combined group, Westfield has also increased its weightings in the S&P/ASX Property Trust indices and the MSCI indices.
