Westfield Newmarket shopping mall in Auckland. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
Westfield Newmarket shopping mall in Auckland. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
New Zealand’s largest shopping centre owner pushed up revenue in the latest year to make A$2.5 billion from its Westfield-branded properties where shopper numbers were up 6.7 per cent.
ASX-listed Scentre Group, with malls here and in Australia, declared its result for the year to December 31, 2023.
Shopper visitsthroughout Australasia rose 6.7 per cent from 480 million in 2022 to 512 million in 2023.
Scentre made A$2.3b revenue in the year to December 31, 2022 but A$2.5b in the latest year as a result of more people spending more.
Net operating income rose from A$1.7b to A$1.9b but overheads were also up from A$86m to A$90m.
The other 49 per cent of those five New Zealand malls is owned by a Singaporean government property investment fund.
Scentre listed these details about its five New Zealand malls:
Westfield Albany, 51 per cent valued at $288.2m, recorded total sales of $446.5m for the year to December 31, 2023, annual visits 8.5 million;
Westfield Manukau, 51 per cent valued at $173.4m, total annual sales $313.8m, annual visits 7 million;
Westfield Newmarket, 51 per cent valued at $586m, total annual sales $711.9m, annual visits 13 million;
Westfield St Lukes, 51 per cent valued at $165m, total annual sales $312.7m, annual visits 5.8 million;
Westfield Riccarton, 51 per cent valued at $283m, total annual sales $588.5m, annual visits 10 million.
In this country, Scentre has 54ha of land and a gross lettable area of 280,000sq m in its properties.
The group owns more than 670ha of land in Australasia, primarily in major population and growth regions, it said.
More than 12,000 shops trade from its 42 locations.
Christopher Luxon campaigning at Westfield Riccarton in Christchurch before National was elected. Photo / George Heard
Scentre has “four of the top five shopping centres in New Zealand”, an investor presentation on the ASX today said. It did not name it, but Kiwi Property Group’s Sylvia Park is regarded is the fifth top destination.
Scentre has long planned to develop its Albany mall site which is mainly flat asphalt car parking. In today’s presentation, Albany continues to appear as a development opportunity alongside Australian opportunities.
Scentre says it has A$4b of future developments planned.
Elliott Rusanow, chief executive, said the focus was on creating places and experiences that more people chose to come to, more often and for longer.
New partnerships had been formed with Disney, Live Nation and Netball Australia.
The group collected A$2.7b gross rent during the year, up A$131m compared to 2022 and equivalent to 103 per cent of gross rental billings for the period.
Scentre’s property occupancy was 99.2 per cent at the end of the year. Average speciality rents were up 7.5 per cent.
The company completed 3273 leasing deals in the last year, including 307 new brands which were added to its centre.
Westfield’s membership programme now has more than 3.8m people, up by 640,000 on 2022.
In November, Scentre opened the final stage of the A$355m (Scentre share A$178m) investment in Westfield Knox in Melbourne.
Work continues to expand Westfield Sydney along with a number of other Scentre properties.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 24 years, has won many awards, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.
