While investment banks working on the sweeping restructure of Westfield's $70 billion shopping centre empire have been named as JPMorgan, Rothschild, Morgan Stanley and UBS, other investment banks such as Citi are wading into the deal, providing debt for the shopping centre giant.
Morgan Stanley and UBS are advisers on the deal for WRT, while JPMorgan and Rothschild are in Westfield Group's corner.
Groups such as Citi are looking for some fees with some of the work ahead of a vote on May by shareholders to combine Westfield's Australian and New Zealand properties with Westfield Retail Trust to form Scentre Group, making Westfield Group a company with just European and US properties that would be rebranded Westfield Corporation.
Previously, the shopping centre giant had said the company had yet to decide whether to list the proposed Westfield Corporation in London and New York, and/or Australia.
However, yesterday, Westfield investors said they were betting on New York as the location where a proposed new company comprising the landlord's global shopping centres would be listed, should investors vote in May in favour of the business being spun out.
Sources say Westfield would be eyeing up the multiples its rival Simon Property Group was trading at on the New York Stock Exchange, which were far higher than Westfield Group's.
British companies such as Hammerson were trading at multiples about 21 times in London, but the NYSE was favoured because there was a far deeper real estate investment trust pool than Britain. Simon, the largest listed owner of commercial real estate in the US, was trading at 16 times price earnings compared with Westfield's 14.7 times in Australia.