(Dec 13): After spending more than half a century building a global shopping mall empire with properties stretching from London to San Francisco, Australian tycoon Frank Lowy is letting go of the business that made him a billionaire.

The 87-year-old co-founder of Westfield Corp. said he and his sons will focus on managing investments instead of running shopping centers after agreeing to sell the mall operator to Paris-based Unibail-Rodamco SE for A$21 billion ($21.4 billion) -- the biggest deal in real estate since 2013.

It’s the end of an era for Lowy, a Holocaust survivor who earned his fortune by opening malls across the world, beginning with one in western Sydney in 1959. His family’s decision to reduce exposure to shopping centers comes as the industry tries to reinvent itself to survive the surge in online retailing.

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