Carve up of Lang Walker’s $6bn empire starts to take shape as family and trusted executives step up to run property giant

The late tycoon left behind one of Australia’s biggest private companies and new documents reveal how his wife, children, and two trusted directors will share the property behemoth’s assets.

The carve up of the $6bn empire built by late billionaire Lang Walker has begun, with his family and trusted lieutenants emerging with control of the property giant.

Documents lodged this week with the corporate regulator show Mr Walker’s wife Sue and three children are now in command of the huge Walker Corporation business via an entity called Walker Family No 1 Pty Ltd.

Sue Walker is joined by children Blake Walker, Chad Walker and Georgia Vesperman (nee Walker) as majority shareholders of Walker Family No 1, a corporate trustee of a trust established for the benefit of the Walker Family.

The late Lang Walker with his wife Sue.

Also newly listed as shareholders of Walker Family No 1 are Walker Corporation directors Bruce Hancox and Mark Wilkinson, and while the duo will help control the business its ownership will remain with the Walker family.

Sue Walker, who has been a director of Walker Corporation’s parent company Walker Group Holdings since 2008, and her three children each have equal shareholding in the corporate trustee vehicle.

Mr Hancox has worked for Walker Corporation since 2018, providing “strategic wealth and business advice” to the late Mr Walker, according to the company. He was previously chairman and group chief executive of Brierley Investments.

Mr Wilkinson has been with Walker Corporation almost 30 years overseeing its corporate finance function.

Walker Corp director Bruce Hancox.

Walker Corp director Mark Wilkinson.

Blake Walker and Chad Walker are both directors of corporate relations at the family business and the Walker Family Foundation, and were also this week appointed as directors of the board of Walker Group Holdings.

Also stepping onto the board is Nathan Campbell, Walker Corporation’s chief operating officer, and Peter Saba, the company’s group executive of development.

Walker Corporation’s chief executive is David Gallant, who is leading the company’s continued expansion plans.

Blake Walker speaking at the memorial service for his father Lang Walker. Picture: Damian Shaw

It has already flagged a strategy to build up its passive portfolio from an already sizeable $9bn to around $20bn in coming years by completing the projects the late tycoon Mr Walker had envisaged.

While Mr Walker kept a strict focus on having the best quality buildings, a handover to management was quietly put in train last year, as The Australian revealed in late January.

The tycoon travelled widely but was kept abreast of operations wherever he was in the world, including frequent visits to the $100m Kokomo Private Island Resort in Fiji he built.

Blake Walker has been working at Walker Corporation since 1992, overseeing its big Vicinity Business Park project in South Australia, and is now helping to deliver the Lang Walker AO Medical Research Building at Macarthur in southwest Sydney which is due to open in 2025.

Georgia Vesperman (nee Walker).

Chad Walker has more than 20 years experience in the business after previously acting as the director of the company’s masterplanned communities division, which saw him involved in some of Walker Corporation’s big projects at Rhodes in Sydney’s west and Balmain Cove.

Chad Walker, Walker Corporation

Mr Walker’s daughter Georgia Vesperman is the executive director of the Walker Family Foundation, driving the family and company’s philanthropic investments in health, education and culture after previously working as the company’s director of marketing.

The Walker Corporation empire takes in office tower projects in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, and more than 10,000 apartments and 30,000 residential housing lots around the country.

It has another 45,000 lots across three housing estates in Malaysia.

Lang Walker’s business history spanned six decades, having started as an earthmoving business A & L Walker with his father Alex in 1964.

He then took the Walker business public in 1994, before selling to Australand and concentrating on his private McRoss Developments, which changed its name back to Walker Corporation in 2003.

Originally published as Carve up of Lang Walker’s $6bn empire starts to take shape as family and trusted executives step up to run property giant