Westfield Group annual profit slides to $1.6 billion

WESTFIELD Group has said its Australian business remains highly resilient after posting a fall in profit for fiscal 2013.

WESTFIELD Group said its Australian business remains highly resilient, after posting a fall in profit for fiscal 2013.

The shopping centre operator saw a $1.6 billion net profit after tax for 2013, representing a 6.7 per cent fall from the previous year.

But revenue lifted by 7.4 per cent in the year, to $2.39 billion.

Assets under management grew to $70 billion at December 31, up $5.6 billion on the previous year.

The group will pay final distributions totalling 25.5c per share, bringing total distributions for the year to 51c per share for the year, up 3 per cent from 2013 in line with the group’s forecasts.

Westfield Group co-chief executive officers Peter Lowy and Steven Lowy said each market showed high productivity, with growth in specialty sales and comparable net operating income.

“During the year we successfully continued the strategic repositioning of the group by divesting non-core assets, introducing further joint ventures, investing in our development activity and announcing the acquisition of the remaining 50 per cent interest in the Westfield World Trade Center in New York,” they said.

“Our business is in a strong position in each of the markets we operate.”

Meanwhile, Westfield Retail Trust expects to increase funds from operations by 2.8 per cent in fiscal 2014, after its 2013 profit fell slightly.

Profit after tax attributable to unitholders fell by 6.5 per cent to $777.1 million in the full year to December 2013, compared with $830.8 million in the year to December 2012.

Revenue increased by 2.1 per cent to $1.10 billion in 2013, compared with $1.08 billion in the previous year.

The group will pay a final distribution of 9.925c on February 28 to shareholders who were on the record on February 13.

Meanwhile, funds from operations rose by 0.9 per cent in the year to $596.8 million, compared with $591.4 million in the previous year, while funds from operations per stapled security lifted by 2.5 per cent to 19.85c in the year, compared with 19.367 in the prior year.

Westfield said it expected to increase funds from operations to increase by 2.8 per cent to 20.4 cents per stapled security in 2014, and pay out the full 20.4c per security in distributions.

The increase assumes comparable net operating income growth of 2 per cent to 2.5 per cent for Australia and 1.5 per cent to 2 per cent for the portfolio and assumes no material change in the current operating environment and excludes the impact of a previously announced merger proposal or any future capital transactions.

The group said it had the capacity and capital to deliver incremental long-term growth for securityholders.

The trust last year announced a proposal to merge with Westfield Group’s Australian and New Zealand business to form a new entity called Scentre Group, which will manage, develop and partly own Westfield branded shopping centres in Australia and New Zealand.

The 2014 proforma forecast for Scentre Group is funds from operations of 21.5c per stapled security in 2014.