Westfield to list its $194m tech start-up on the ASX

Westfield is preparing to demerge its newly-created retail technology business OneMarket and list it on the Australian Securities Exchange with $197.5 million in cash.

The move forms part of Westfield's proposed $30 billion acquisition by European property giant Unibail-Rodamco following an offer made in the lead-up to Christmas last year.

The boards of both companies have recommended the deal, which would create the world's biggest retail landlord. It does not include the Australian and New Zealand Westfield operations, which are owned by Scentre Group.

At the time of the acquisition announcement, Westfield said it would use the merger to spin off 90 percent of its retail technology platform OneMarket into an ASX-listed entity. The combined group would retain 10 percent.

It said it had always intended to separate the business "at the appropriate time".

At its full-year results presentation today, Westfield revealed OneMarket would list with $197.5 million in cash, $57.3 million in goodwill, $42.4 million of capitalised technology and development costs, and $6.6 million in unlisted investment.

OneMarket brought in $2.4 million in revenue for the group in the last financial year, Westfield revealed. The company spent $22.9 million over the period on development for the division, and invested $7.2 million.

Westfield said it would reveal more detail on the planned listing in a demerger booklist scheduled for release to shareholders in April.

OneMarket was created in 2017 as a spin-out from Westfield's Labs innovation hub. It is based in San Francisco and run by CEO Don Kinsborough, who has spent the last year recruiting staff from Silicon Valley to the business.

The 'mysterious' OneMarket is a network intended to enable bricks and mortar retailers to better compete with the likes of Amazon, through a shared data-based platform that hooks in to retailers' existing databases for real-time product updates.

Its aim is to integrate a fragmented industry in order to overcome "data, technology, and speed-to-market challenges" and create better, more unified experiences for shoppers.

The business was initially focused on providing internal services to Westfield when it was born in 2016 as Westfield Retail Solutions, but has spent the past year transitioning to a third-party service provider to the retail sector.

Westfield is yet to detail how many clients it has signed up to the platform.