Gordon Fu: The man behind Brisbane, Logan and Gold Coast shopping centres
He’s the reclusive billionaire who has bought up Queensland’s most public of spaces. Meet the man behind your favourite shopping centres. SPECIAL REPORT
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He’s the reclusive billionaire who has bought up Queensland’s most public of spaces.
Shopping centre mogul Gordon Fu may be among Queensland’s richest people, but he seeks anonymity as zealously as he seeks new deals.
As reported in 2002 Mr Fu had rarely been photographed or interviewed by any media.
And his company, Yu Feng, which controlled a portfolio of shopping centres worth $1 billion, was not even listed in the Brisbane telephone directory.
Through his company Yu Feng, Mr Fu has had 18 or more major shopping centres at one time, containing 452,139sq m of space, making him among the largest owners of shopping centres in Australia.
His portfolio consisted solely of shopping centres firmly rooted in the growing urban sprawl of southeast Queensland, servicing the middle of middle Australia.
Mr Fu was born in Taiwan as Hsien-ta Fu, the son of a cold-drink street vendor.
His first job was painting cinema posters, but Mr Fu made his mark with a construction company that was responsible for much of the early high-rise in Taiwan.
He also had a diverse range of business interests, including stockbroking and a fast-food chicken chain.
Mr Fu adopted Gordon as his first name when he arrived in Queensland in 1991 as part of a mass migration of wealthy Taiwanese families to Brisbane under the federal government’s business migration scheme.
Many settled in the outer southern Brisbane suburb of Sunnybank.
Two of Mr Fu’s first investments were the nearby shopping centres of Mt Gravatt and Sunnybank.
In 2001, Mr Fu gave an interview to the house magazine of Byvan, the manager of his properties.
He said southeast Queensland was the quickest growing area of the country and there was always a need for people to shop.
“Shopping centres offer a steady cash flow and are sheltered from dramatic economic fluctuations by their mix of retailers and tenants,’’ he said.
“Investing in this protected market is relatively secure when compared with other property investments.’’
This is the untold story of the secret billionaire and his shopping centre empire >>>
July 1996
Private investors were moving to buy southeast Queensland shopping centres as institutions shifted investment weighting away from the retail sector, agents said.
Byvan Management national sales director Stewart Gilchrist said that while there had been a lack of good shopping centres available in Brisbane, there had been a rush on centre sales.
He said many private investors such as Yu Feng Pty Ltd, which bought three southeast Queensland centres in the past month, were capitalising on the lack of institutional interest.
“Many of the institutional funds are overweighted in retail areas,’’ he said.
“It would be much easier to sell off their excess stock in Queensland than in the southern states.’’
Mr Gilchrist, who managed all of the centres owned by the Sunnybank-based Yu Feng, said the company was a prime example of aggressive private investment in the retail sector.
The head of Yu Feng, Gordon Fu, had a desire to be the biggest player in the southeast Queensland retail market, Mr Gilchrist said.
Yu Feng, believed to be funded by local banks and other investors, at the time had a retail portfolio worth more than $300 million.
The company paid $9.35 million for the Margate shopping centre, $40.67 million for Booval Fair and about $10 million for the Fairfield Gardens centre.
“He’s capitalising on the fact that institutional investors are redirecting their funds into commercial and industrial areas,’’ Mr Gilchrist said.
December 1996
Taiwanese Australian investor Gordon Fu’s hunger for shopping centres continued, with his investment vehicle Yu Feng claiming the Arndale shopping centre at Springwood.
Sources said Yu Feng paid owner Exceptional Pty Ltd close to $17 million for the centre at Cinderella Drive.
The complex is the 12th shopping centre in southeast Queensland to be added to the Yu Feng portfolio since Mr Fu and his family arrived in Australia in 1992.
Byvan joint managing director Steven Bridges, who is believed to have negotiated the deal, declined to comment.
Major tenants at the 10,200sq m centre included Coles and Franklins supermarkets and specialty stores Chandlers, Thomas Cook, Westpac, Heritage Building Society, the Bank of Queensland and Credit Union Australia.
Sunnybank-based Yu Feng had spent $65 million on retail developments in the past 18 months.
His purchases included Stafford City, Booval Fair, Fairfield Gardens and Margate shopping centres, adding to earlier acquisitions at Sunnybank (where he owned Sunny Park and Sunnybank Plaza opposite each other), Kippa Ring, Cannon Hill, Mt Gravatt and Maroochydore.
The portfolio was estimated to be worth more than $300 million.
February 1997
Commercial property’s strong start to 1997 continued with the sale of Sunnybank Hills Shoppingtown for $37 million to prolific retail property investor Yu Feng Pty Ltd.
Yu Feng, the family company of Australian-Taiwanese investor Gordon Fu, already owned 12 southeast Queensland shopping centres worth more than $300 million.
He owned the Sunny Park and Sunnybank Plaza centres and now controlled three major shopping centres totalling 71,000sq m in Sunnybank Hills.
In March 1997 it was announced major improvements were planned for Sunnybank Hills Shoppingtown.
Byvan Management’s director of the Yu Feng portfolio, David Bull, said Mr Fu had an affection for the Sunnybank area and had been in negotiations to purchase Sunnybank Hills Shoppingtown for some time.
He said improvements to the car park would be one of the first changes to benefit shoppers.
“We want to make this place more user-friendly; we’ll be improving the car parking and increasing its lighting,’’ Mr Bull said.
May 1997
The Taiwanese Yu Feng group bought the Brookside Shopping Centre, a regional centre in Brisbane’s north west, from Grosvenor Freehold for $120 million.
It brought the number of retail properties in the Yu Feng portfolio to 14 and the value to more than $450 million.
Brookside was the first regional shopping centre in the list, which had comprised discount department store-based centres and sub-regionals in Brisbane and Maroochydore.
The purchase brought the group’s head, Mr Hsien-ta (Gordon) Fu, closer to his stated aim of being as big as Westfield.
The sale of the 14-hectare parcel of land encompasses the 43,801 square-metre centre and the adjacent Brook Hotel, as well as a freestanding Sizzler, McDonald’s, and Mitre 10 hardware store.
One of its closest neighbours was the discount department store-based shopping centre Stafford City, also owned by Yu Feng, and undergoing a $16 million extension.
July 1997
Taiwanese investor the Yu Feng group bought another Brisbane shopping centre, Capalaba Park, for $73 million.
It was believed Yu Feng beat about four other serious buyers for the centre, which lies on a 7.6 hectare site on the corner of Redland Bay Road and Mount Cotton Road, Capalaba.
The vendor, Schroders Property, confirmed that contracts for Capalaba Park had been exchanged.
Capalaba Park comprises a Coles supermarket, Franklins, K mart, Target and 120 specialty shops with a gross lettable area of 32,000 square metres. It also had many specialty tenants including Katies, Jeans West, Michael Hill Jewellers, Mathers, Sussan, Jacqui E and Sanity Records.
The centre was established in 1981 and was upgraded once before Schroders bought it for private clients in 1990.
The deal brought the number of shopping centres in the Yu Feng portfolio to 17.
The $73 million acquisition of Capalaba Park regional shopping centre cemented Mr Feng as the third-largest Queensland property owner.
August 1998
Yu Feng chairman Gordon Fu discussed multiculturalism and the Australian lifestyle when he presented Robertson State School principal Ross Harvey with a donation of $20,000 at Sunnybank Plaza.
Mr Harvey said the Taiwanese Friendship Society, of which Mr Fu is a member, had always been very generous to the school.
Mr Fu said as an Australian citizen he wanted to repay society for his business success.
He said he enjoyed the Australian lifestyle and it was right that he should give something back to make the community even better.
Mr Fu’s contribution brings to $812,000 the amount available for the construction of an activity centre for international trampoline championships, state level gymnastics and general school activities.
December 1998
In seven years Gordon Fu built up his private family company, Yu Feng Pty Ltd, into the largest privately held retail portfolio in Australia.
Sources estimated that the latest valuation, counting the $104 million purchase of Toowong Village and numerous refurbishments and upgrades will top $800 million in 1999.
This placed the Taiwan-born businessman and his close-knit family among major institutional property owners such as Suncorp and Queensland Investment Corporation.
After starting small in 1992 with run-down southern suburbs centres, Yu Feng lifted its sights to target larger regional centres in the past 18 months.
Yu Feng’s past three acquisitions – Brookside, Capalaba Park and Toowong Village – totalled $293 million.
In the same period Yu Feng also launched two new multi-screen cinema complexes in its suburban centres.
Sources close to the private family company – which has traditionally shunned the media – estimate Yu Feng had spent close to $100 million refurbishing and improving centres.
November 1999
Who wants to be a millionaire?
Heading the list of Queensland’s super rich was property owner Gordon Fu and his Yu Feng company, with an estimated wealth of $332 million.
A successful businessman in Taiwan, since he moved to Brisbane in 1991 he had been snapping up shopping centres — the latest in Toowong for a rumoured $104 million.
Fu reportedly had Australia’s largest privately held property portfolio with 16 shopping centres including Brookside, Stafford City, and Sunnybank Hills and Sunnybank Plaza.
Fu, married with three grown children and shy of publicity, was described by his lawyer David Barry as a “hands-on man’’ who regularly visits his shopping centres to check out operations.
February 2001
Queensland’s biggest shopping centre owner, Yu Feng, was back in the market, with the $62.65 million purchase of its 17th property, the Aspley Hypermarket.
The deal took the value of Yu Feng’s retail interests in Queensland to about $850 million.
In a rapid-fire off-market deal negotiated by Byvan, Yu Feng signed an unconditional contract to buy the 31,500sq m shopping centre from Mirvac Group.
Mirvac investment division CEO Barry Neil said the sale represented a premium over the current valuation of $61 million.
The Brisbane-based Taiwanese family bought its first shopping centre in Brisbane in 1992 and nine years later has amassed what is believed to be the country’s biggest private retail portfolio.
The company’s reclusive founder, Gordon Fu, never grants interviews and communicates only through Byvan, which manages all of the group’s centres, or through corporate lawyer David Barry.
October 2001
Shopping centre king Gordon Fu bought full control of Southport’s Australia Fair in a deal that valued the centre at just over $160 million.
Australia Fair was Mr Fu’s first purchase on the Gold Coast and lifted the number of centres he owned in southeast Queensland to 18.
The Taiwanese business migrant bought a half share of Australia Fair for $80 million in May from British group MEPC and indicated that ultimately he would like full control.
He then settled the purchase of the other 50 per cent, bought from Commonwealth Bank subsidiary Colonial First State Property.
The deal lifted the value of Mr Fu’s shopping centre portfolio to more than $1 billion.
Australia Fair was initiated by developer Pat Zarro in the mid-80s when he built the twin-level Scarborough Fair shopping centre on the western side of Scarborough Street.
Mr Zarro followed that with stage one of the major portion of Australia Fair – an office, shops and carpark building between Scarborough Street and Marine Parade.
December 2002
The Yu Feng property group grabbed another key retail asset for its ever-expanding portfolio, negotiating to buy Redbank Plaza in Ipswich for $93 million.
The acquisition cemented Yu Feng, the private company of Gordon Fu, as one of the country’s largest private owners of retail property, with more than $1 billion of property on its books.
Yu Feng bought the Redbank centre from short-term owner Australian Prime Property Fund Retail, which was managed by Lend Lease Real Estate Investments.
The sale price reflected a significant premium, of 11.6 per cent, to the fund’s current book value of $83.3 million.
David Barry, of Barry & Nilsson, lawyer for the Yu Feng Group, said that Yu Feng was always seeking to add to its portfolio.
“I’d say his (Mr Fu’s) portfolio is now worth over $1 billion and he would have over 2000 tenants,’’ he said.
Are there plans for expansion?
“In all of the centres so far … if there has been an opportunity to improve it, Mr Fu has done that,’’ Mr Barry said.
May 2003
Sunnybank’s Gordon Fu was named the richest person in Queensland in the Business Review Weekly’s Rich 200.
Mr Fu, who owned 19 shopping centres including Sunnybank Plaza, Sunny Park, Sunnybank Hills Shoppingtown and Mt Gravatt Plaza, was among 48 property barons on the list worth a combined $16.7 billion.
He has come a long way from the 12-year-old who is believed to have worked in a cinema sweeping floors and one day vowed to own his own movie theatre.
Business Review Weekly estimated Mr Fu’s worth at $572 million, up 19 per cent on his 2002 value of $480 million.
His company Yu Feng had a portfolio of shopping centres valued at $1.2 billion and covering more than 440,000sq m of floor space. It employed 130 people.
June 2013
Gordon Fu loves visiting shopping centres – but dislikes driving distances.
So the then-60-year-old businessman bought 18 shopping centres all within an hour’s drive of central Brisbane so he can regularly travel to them and keep an eye on how they’re operating.
But don’t expect to see him. The Taiwanese tycoon is one of Queensland’s most reclusive entrepreneurs.
Fu was born Hsien-Ta Fu, the son of a street vendor, and took the name Gordon when he migrated to Australia in 1991.
Within five years, Fu became the second-largest owner of shopping centres in the country after Westfield.
His other properties include Australia Fair at Southport, Booval Fair in Ipswich, Brookside in Brisbane, Peninsula Fair at Redcliffe, Redbank Plaza and the Toowong Village and Tower.
Fu is a major backer of the building of the Buddhist Chung Tian (Central Heaven) Temple at Rochedale.
July 2021
Families remain at the heart of the shopping centre ownership pool in Brisbane although institutions are expected to get an increasingly larger slice of the retail pie.
A survey of more than 150 shopping centres, anchored by either a Woolworths, Coles or Aldi in Greater Brisbane, found that the biggest owners were private individuals or companies.
Institutional investors own less than a third of the suburban shopping centres but dominate the mega billion-dollar super regional retail category.
Family owners dominate the neighbourhood shopping centre segment, although many are hands off.
YFG Shopping Centres is the largest private owner in Australia with 15 in the Greater Brisbane area and 20 in southeast Queensland with its last purchase being Mt Ommaney Shopping Centre for $380m.
The company was started by Gordon Fu.
YFG is a family business which guards its privacy well. It includes Mr Fu’s sons as well as son-in-law Jack Lin who had other sole ventures.
Genuine richlisters, Mr Fu’s and Mr Lin’s separate fortunes were estimated to be $1.79bn each.
October 2023
Secretive billionaire Mr Fu planned a major upgrade of his Sunny Park property in Sunnybank which he bought for just $13 million back in 1993.
The family company, Yu Feng, the second biggest shopping centre owners after Westfield, announced a suite of features including new travelator access and basement amenities, an upgraded facade and internal expansion of Woolworths.
The centre would remain open during the work, expected to be finished by January, 2025.
The family also own Sunnybank Plaza, on the other side of the McCullough St/Mains Rd intersection.
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