Australia's most prominent retail family may be preparing to abandon ship

Australia's most prominent retail family may be preparing to abandon ship. The Lowy family orchestrated a controversial restructure in June that spun off Westfield Group's Australian shopping centres into a new company called Scentre so it could concentrate on the higher growth shopping centres abroad. Freed from the slower growth Australasian assets and with foreign investors desperate to buy long-dated assets yielding anything above zero, Westfield Corporation is being touted as a takeover candidate. Its smaller size would also make it easier to bite off for the usual suspects, including large foreign property groups Simon Property Group and Unibail-Rodamco. The Lowy family already has a large amount of personal wealth invested outside Australia, so perhaps patriarch Frank and his chief executive sons Steven and Peter are also ready to diversify some more after distinguished careers at Westfield. Read the article: (VIEW LINK)