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1)”He took Westfield into the US in 1976, to New Zealand in 1997…
1)”He took Westfield into the US in 1976, to New Zealand in 1997 and to Britain in 1999, creating at one point the largest shopping centre operation in the world…”
Identify and explain three key challenges Frank Lowy would have faced in implementing responsible leadership in his global business.
2) “He was a great mentor and very focused on shareholder returns”.
Critically evaluate how Frank Lowy can be a responsible leader while being ‘very focused’ on shareholder returns. “He was a great mentor and very focused on shareholder returns”.
Frank Lowy’s journey, from the Holocaust, to a Blacktown delicatessen and on to a $50 billion global shopping centre empire, is Australian legend.
Westfield became a household name for millions of consumers, a must for retailers, and a wealth creator for Sir Frank’s investors and family. And he knew when to leave, close to the peak of the long shopping centre cycle.
“Wealth and fame did not change Frank at all,” says former Westfield director David Gonski. “He came with nothing and worked his way into a big business with a lot of hard work and endurance. He never sat back and coasted.”
“He has intuitive knowledge of where the trends are going. He was an early adopter of shopping centres, of international investment, of finance and of technology.”
Peter Allen, who led Westfield’s success in Britain and is now chief executive of Scentre Group, says Sir Frank has the rare ability to see both the big picture and the detail; to maximise information; and then to “compartmentalise” and focus on the most important issue at hand.
“He was a great mentor and very focused on shareholder returns,” Allen says.
Sir Frank turned the fledgling shopping centre business into a fully integrated, institutional-grade operator of urban infrastructure.
He reworked the financial structure, embracing the Real Estate Investment Trust, in the search for the lowest cost of capital. He took Westfield into the US in 1976, to New Zealand in 1997 and to Britain in 1999, creating at one point the largest shopping centre operation in the world, and without the hubris that often marks Australian ventures offshore. (Like Sir Frank’s foray into Channel Ten, there were missteps, into Malaysia and Brazil, but all were quickly exited.)
Starting with the share market battle for Grace Bros in the early 1980s, he became
a master of the corporate play, dealing Westfield into portfolios such as Rodamco North America, landmark projects such as Westfield London and Stratford, and restructures such as Scentre.
“He is one of the best deal makers and deal doers I know,” says Gonski. “It is because he has the amazing ability to know where he wants to take the business.”
Several of the deals were bruising encounters, but that goes with the territory, along with challenges over planning, governance, taxation, and relations with retailers.
Stephen Johns, who worked with Sir Frank for almost 40 years, many of them as Westfield’s finance director, stresses Sir Frank’s willingness to listen.
“He surrounded himself with outstanding people – directors, advisers and executives – and while being very decisive, always keenly sought their advice before making important decisions,” says Johns, who is now the chairman of Goodman Group.
“Never in the 40 years I worked with Frank did he say, ‘I’ve been in this business for xx years and we’ll do it my way’.”
Johns says that “before you talk about Frank Lowy the businessman, you have to talk about Frank Lowy the person. Not only intelligent and strong, he is insightful, sensitive and generous; as a result, he generated great loyalty among those who worked closely with him.”
Beyond Westfield, Sir Frank was a leading philanthropist, a confidant of prime ministers, a director of the Reserve Bank, the founder of the Lowy Institute, and the much respected chairman of Football Federation Australia.
But he often said, as more business leaders should, that his family was his greatest achievement.
