Scentre Group, the country's biggest shopping centre landlord that owns and manages Westfield shopping centres, has pared back its stable of non-core assets, with the sale of four centres across the country.
Its specialty stores' sales rose 6.1 per cent, with mobile phones and technology sales leading the charge ahead of fashion, footwear, jewellery, leisure, technology and appliances, and cinemas categories.
Department store sales were still negative, but showed an improvement, while supermarkets remained strong.
This comes as the group says retail conditions are improving due to increased use of technology in the centres with generate income, better demand for fashion helped by the overseas brands and increased food offerings across redeveloped malls.
Funds raised will be ploughed back into the $3 billion development pipeline. The assets are in NSW and Queensland, being Figtree, Strathpine and Warrawong which were sold to affiliates of Blackstone Real Estate Asia, and with Challenger for North Rocks.
The retail landlord, which was created in July last year, after a restructure with the former Westfield Retail Trust and Westfield Group.
As a result of the merger and creation of Scentre, are no direct comparative earnings figures. The group has reported a net profit of $1.09 billion for the half year to June 30, and after taking out asset revaluations, the profit was $604.2 million, which was in line with the forecasts made in the merger documents.
Scentre's chief executive Peter Allen said Funds From Operations, being a more meaningful measure for property trusts, was 11.38¢ per security and distribution of 10.45¢ per security, in line with forecast. He forecast FFO of 22.5¢ per security, a 3.5 per cent growth, and distribution forecast of 20.9¢ per security, for the full year to December 31.
More to come
