Australia’s Centro Properties Group has received A$13.5 billion ($17.5 billion) worth of indicative bids for its shopping malls, with top bidders including Australian and Singapore investors, the Sydney Morning Herald said on Monday.

Among the interested buyers for some or all of Centro’s assets up for sale are Westfield, Lend Lease’s Australian Prime Property Fund, CFS Retail Trust, Queensland Investment Corp, and the Singapore Government Investment Corp (GIC), the paper said without citing its sources.

Offers for US assets came mostly from private investors and hedge funds, which would also be willing to take on some of the Centro debt, the paper said.

Centro manages an A$18.6 billion portfolio of shopping malls in the United States, Australia and New Zealand but it also has A$18.4 of debt with about A$11.5 billion of that debt needing refinancing by the end of Dec. 2011.

Last month Centro granted Australia’s Cromwell Group exclusive due diligence on one of its investments, the direct property syndicate funds management business.