Westfield Group (WDC), the world’s biggest shopping-center owner, is making a $1.2 billion bet that its new mall in east London will thrive long after the 2012 Olympic Games are over. That’s because it’s targeting some of the country’s wealthiest consumers.
“We see two completely separate markets,” Peter Lowy, one of Sydney-based Westfield’s joint managing directors, said in an interview. “There’s strength in London and much less strength in the rest of the country.”
Westfield Stratford City will be Europe’s largest urban mall when it opens close to the main Olympic site in September. Many of its customers will come from the City of London and Canary Wharf financial districts and neighborhoods such as Shoreditch and Islington, where disposable incomes are higher than the national average and the risk of government job losses is lower.
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