Westfield share offer raises $2.6b

Westfield Retail Trust, the Australia and New Zealand mall owner being carved out of Westfield Group, raised A$2 billion ($2.6 billion) in a share offer, 43 per cent below the total it had sought.

Investors paid a fixed A$2.75 a share, the company told the stock exchange, with demand exceeding the underwritten portion of the sale by A$250 million.

The company had sought to raise as much as A$3.5 billion from selling shares in the new trust, which will own 50 per cent stakes in Westfield Group's 54 Australian and New Zealand shopping centres.

The new trust, announced last month, partially reverses a merger of Westfield's three businesses six years ago that created the world's biggest shopping mall operator.

The Sydney-based company is seeking to boost returns for shareholders in a stock that remains at about half its February 2007 peak.

The share sale price is at an 11 per cent discount to the trust's net tangible assets, the company said on November 3.

Westfield Retail Trust, which will have A$12.2 billion of assets, including stakes in the Bondi Junction mall in Sydney and the Doncaster Centre in Melbourne, is expected to start trading on the Australian stock exchange on Monday, after a shareholder vote tomorrow, the company said. The money raised for the trust will go to Westfield Group to pay for the assets.

Existing Westfield Group holders will receive one Westfield Retail Trust share for each Westfield Group share they own, equating to A$7.3 billion, to compensate for the dilution to their investment, the company said last month.

- BLOOMBERG