Frank Lowy bids farewell as takeover approved
Sir Frank Lowy has bid farewell after shareholders yesterday approved Austraila’s biggest corporate takeover.
Eighty-seven-year-old Sir Frank Lowy will “not sit on the beach and do nothing” but instead channel his energy into his family’s $4 billion private investment company and his foreign policy think tank, the Lowy Institute, after shareholders yesterday approved Austraila’s biggest corporate takeover.
Dwarfed by the Sydney Town Hall’s soaring 20m ceilings, a sometimes jovial, sometimes teary Sir Frank reminisced about 58 years of Westfield, his last time chairing the international shopping centre giant’s annual meeting, and a “very lucky” corporate life.
He was given two standing ovations by shareholders.
“Over the past weeks a lot of people have asked me: ‘How do you feel?’,” Sir Frank told a meeting peppered with present and past executives including former lieutenant and Scentre chief executive Peter Allen, institutional investors and mostly older retail investors who had held on to their Westfield shares through its many corporate restructures.
“Of course there is a tinge of sadness,” he told the room.
Sir Frank signalled a future involvement in business and will continue to chair the private Lowy Family Group in which his three sons are heavily involved.
Flanked by his sons — Westfield co-chief executives Peter and Steven, and David, who runs LFG — Sir Frank gave an emotional farewell, speaking of his history as a refugee and starting out with partner John Saunders in a delicatessen in Sydney’s Blacktown.
He also outlined his ambitions in business, culminating in the $32bn friendly takeover by French property giant Unibail-Rodamco.
When asked what’s next, Sir Frank said: “Things happen in life, unexpected things.
“I don’t intend to sit on the beach and do nothing for the rest of my life.
“Something will happen. The Lowy Institute is very important for me, and I will spend more time (on it).”
Globalisation was in his DNA, Sir Frank told shareholders.
“In all my activities, with Westfield, with football, in foreign policy — it’s all been about showing the best of Australia to the world.”
Sir Frank said the Lowy Institute provided a way to promote Australia’s intellectual output.
“I believed fundamentally that we had more to offer the world than beaches and sport — as wonderful as those things are,” he said.
“I arrived at a special time: the growth of Australia in 50s was just beginning. I happened to do business in Blacktown and immigrants were swarming into that part of Sydney, so that gave me the opportunity to do many things.”
“I’m not the only successful immigrant,” he said after the meeting.
However, on the refugee issue, Sir Frank said the government needed to be in charge of Australia’s borders.
“I was a boat refugee once so I have a sympathy for them, but they can come here through the normal process,” he said.
The veteran chairman weighed into poor governance, questioning the breakdown in corporate structures that allowed the problems exposed by the banking royal commission.
“These are very big organisations and its very difficult to know enough when you are at the top ... but somewhere there was a looseness, because the heads of these corporations and the boards are top people in their field.
“But something got loose in the structure of these big institutions. Now it has been unearthed Australia will take the necessary steps to eliminate these inadequacies in the financial management.” The Lowy family will hold a 2.5-3 per cent share in the new merged company, which will have €62bn ($96bn) worth of assets in 13 countries.
The new company is expected to begin trading next month on the Paris and Amsterdam stock exchanges with a secondary listing in Australia set for June 12.
Sir Frank reaffirmed the family’s intention to maintain its stake in Scentre, which controls the Westfield shopping centres in Australia.
Meanwhile, shareholders also approved the spin-off of the retail technology company OneMarket from Westfield, with Steven Lowy to chair the business.
It will be separately listed on the Australian Securities Exchange.
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