Lowy family cashed up and keen to spend

The billionaire Lowy family has tapped a senior property executive to scout the world for commercial assets.

Steven Lowy says the family has ‘moved on’ from Westfield Picture: Jane Dempster.

The billionaire Lowy family is quickly moving on from the sale of the famed Westfield shopping centre empire, tapping a senior property executive to scout the world for commercial assets.

The group has picked up Charter Hall’s head of office transactions, Lucas Forbes, in a signal that it is expanding its horizons beyond its traditional stomping ground of malls.

The family company has picked up Mr Forbes to help drive its push into new areas of property, including offshore markets.

The Lowy Family Group and the new executive were tight-lipped about the move, as was local executive director John Shin.

The real estate mandate is ­expected to be “sector neutral” and include investments locally and in European markets, sources said.

The Lowy family is cashed up after selling out of Scentre, owner of the local Westfield shopping malls, with the exit in October reaping them about $815m.

Despite an apparent stabilisation in the values of the best malls, and Scentre even buying in Perth, the company’s share price has languished slightly below the price at which the Lowy family sold out.

The family sold the Westfield international empire last year, which was acquired by French company Unibail-Rodamco in a $32bn takeover.

The Westfield name has lived on as it is being used for premiere malls run by Unibail-Rodamco in major European cities as well as its existing presence in Britain and the US.

Speaking after the vote to delist tech spin-off OneMarket, family scion Steven Lowy said the family had “moved on” from its involvement with the famed Westfield ­operation and was now keenly watching areas including technology and equities. The LFG outfit has long had a global equities team and was also involved in debt deals, sources said.

In September, the Lowy family teamed with long-time Westfield lieutenant Michael Gutman and the Alceon operation, run by former Babcock & Brown executives, to launch a property fund that could acquire up to $450m worth of local assets.

They established Assembly Funds Management, which is also targeting all property sectors, including shopping centres where it believes it holds an advantage.

It is also lending to clients, including apartment and housing estate ­developers.

The emphasis is on opportunistic higher return, investing particularly where the fund can capitalise on some disruption.