Nov. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Westfield Group, the world's biggest owner of shopping malls by market value, is seeking to borrow at least $2.5 billion to refinance existing debt and expand its operations, according banks arranging the loan.

Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., Barclays Plc, Citigroup Inc. and National Australia Bank Ltd. have been hired to arrange the facility, according to a joint statement from the lenders. They plan to invite other banks to join the revolving loan this month.

Sydney-based Westfield merged with its U.S. and Australian real estate trusts in July to be better placed to finance its $5.4 billion of developments and fund acquisitions in the U.S., the U.K., Australia and New Zealand.

Westfield plans to borrow for three years and five years to ``refinance certain existing credit facilities and to provide future funding capacity as the group pursues its global strategy,'' the banks said in the news release.

The interest and fees of the transaction weren't disclosed.

Westfield is paying interest of 0.65 percentage point more than the London interbank offered rate for a $36 million three- year loan signed in August 2002, according to Bloomberg data. Three-month Libor was last at 2.18 percent.

The company has stakes in 124 shopping malls in four countries, with a total value of more than A$36.5 billion ($27.2 billion) on about 9.8 million square meters of retail space, the statement said.

Westfield said last week it sold $500 million of bonds to U.S. investors, taking its debt sales last week to $2.6 billion.

To contact the reporter for this story: Patricia Kuo in Hong Kong at pkuo2@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 2, 2004 00:25 EST