Westfield signs Galeries Lafayette as Milan anchor

Department store Galeries Lafayette has signed up as anchor tenant for Westfield’s €1.4 bn Milan mall.

The Milan store will be Galeries Lafayette’s first in Italy.

The 600,000 m2 Westfield Milan is next to Linate airport and Westfield recently increased its share in the development from 50% to 75%. It is working with local JV partner Gruppo Stilo.

The company made the announcement at the presentation of its first-half earnings on Wednesday. In the first six months of this year, good progress was made on the A$2.6 bn (€1.8 bn) (Westfield share A$1.9 bn) of projects currently under construction, with works commencing on the £260 mln (€327 mln) project at Bradford (UK), on behalf of London-based investment manager Meyer Bergman.

Other large, ongoing Westfield developments include the €1 bn World Trade Center mall in New York, but the group intends to make further investments in Europe.

'We expect the development activity to create significant long term value, with estimated development yields in the range of 7%-8%,' Co-CEO Stephen Lowy said. 'Our $9 bn future pipeline is almost entirely weighted towards our flagship assets. Upon completion of these projects, we expect Westfield's flagship assets will represent approximately 80% of the total portfolio and our business will be more evenly weighted between the US and UK/Europe,' he added.

Some 38 of the group´s 40 malls are currently in the US.