The bosses at Westfield's glittering new shopping centre in White City today said they were cautiously optimistic that conditions in recession-hit London are stabilising.

Although the UK was the worst performer among the Australian-based malls giant's global operations, the division's managing director Michael Gutman was upbeat about the 10 month-old London centre.

“We've seen some mildly positive trends and an improvement in sentiment and outlook at all our touchpoints,” he said.

“I think there's a widespread tourist factor across London and we've experienced a really quite strong July and August. We will have to see what happens when people get back from their summer holidays and the really important run-up to Christmas begins but I would say the signs are reasonably encouraging that we will see a solid Christmas period.”

Underlying profit in its eight UK centres slipped 4.1% in the half compared with a 0.6% decline in the US and growth of 6.2% in Australia.

It cited industry statistics saying London retail sales grew by 4.8% and were up 0.5% nationally for the half. Overall the group posted a A$708 million (£362 million) loss for the period against a A$1.28 billion profit this time last year. Revenue fell 6% to A$2.07 billion. Westfield London, the £1.7 billion flagship centre, opened as the financial crisis was gaining momentum.