🏪 Westfield — Key Facts
| Owner | Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) |
| Stock Listing | Euronext Amsterdam & Paris (URW) |
| URW Acquired Westfield | June 2018 for ~$15.8 billion |
| Westfield Founders | Frank Lowy & John Saunders (Australia, 1960) |
| Headquarters (URW) | Paris, France |
| Portfolio | 89 shopping centres in Europe & USA (flagship World Trade Center) |
| US Westfield Malls | Sold Westfield US portfolio to Brookfield & others from 2022 |
Westfield shopping centres around the world are owned by Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW), a Franco-Dutch real estate investment trust listed on Euronext Amsterdam and Paris. URW acquired the Westfield Corporation — the Australian shopping mall company founded by Frank Lowy — in June 2018 for approximately $15.8 billion in what was one of the largest real estate transactions in history.
Who Is the Owner of Westfield?
Westfield is owned by Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW), a European real estate giant formed through the 2018 merger of Unibail-Rodamco (France’s largest commercial property group) with the Westfield Corporation (the Australian company that built the Westfield brand into a global shopping centre empire). After the merger, URW became the world’s largest owner of retail destinations. The Westfield Corporation was taken private before the sale — its founders Frank Lowy and family had built it from a single delicatessen in Sydney in 1952 into a global real estate powerhouse.
Frank Lowy: The Man Who Built Westfield
Frank Lowy — born in Hungary, a Holocaust survivor who emigrated to Australia — co-founded what became Westfield with John Saunders in 1960, opening their first shopping centre in Blacktown, New South Wales in 1959. Lowy built Westfield into one of Australia’s most valuable companies and then expanded it globally, developing landmark shopping centres in the United States (including the Westfield World Trade Center in New York City) and Europe. When URW acquired the Westfield Corporation in 2018, the deal represented a fitting capstone to Lowy’s extraordinary business career. He was knighted and became one of Australia’s most prominent philanthropists.
URW’s Sale of US Westfield Properties
Following the 2018 acquisition, URW faced significant pressure from investors to reduce its debt and simplify its portfolio. Beginning in 2022, URW began selling its US Westfield mall properties to reduce leverage — with Brookfield Asset Management and other buyers acquiring several US Westfield locations. This represented a strategic retreat from the US mall market as e-commerce disruption accelerated. URW now focuses primarily on its European flagship shopping centres and maintains ownership of the Westfield brand globally.
