Newsletter for the Rotary Club of Greater Geraldton - Issue No.: 780 Issue Date: 15 Apr, 2024

Guest Speaker introduction by Tony Emmott

Wayne Harris. Has lived in Geraldton since 2012 when he 'migrated' from Victoria. He has extensive experience in the retail sector is currently the centre manager at Northgate.

Wayne provided us with a small snapshot (his words) of retail shopping centres. He has been involved for the last twenty seven years. Shopping centre managers are usually intensely disliked. He told us that Centro, the former operators of Northgate were a victim of the global financial crisis (2008). As a result their shares went from $8 to 4c in the space of five hours. The company was then sold by ANZ to the Chadstone Group.

The Northgate centre was acquired by the Lend Lease group, who Wayne works for and it is the smallest and most remote of their operations. Other WA L/L operations include Southlands (Willeton), Armadale and Joondalup. Most of L/L's retail centres are in the eastern states. The largest operation is the Chadstone centre which is 140,000 sq metres, by comparison Northgate is 16,000. Standing on the roof of a shopping centre gives you a feel for how big it is.

Lend Lease is a global company with a range of businesses. They work in eight different countries with over 71 billion dollars worth of business. L/L is a diversified company for example they are involved in over 80,000 residential units.

Northgate sales are slipping but Wayne believes this will turn around. He says that the IGA supermarkets in Geraldton are exceptional and their scale and size doesn't generally exist in the east.

He subscribes to the words develop or die.

While L/L is a big company they only have one shopping centre in the top 20 in Australia.

Questions:

Grant Woodhams re relationship with anchor tenant Coles at Northgate.

Jim Dillon re old Pizza Hutt/ old Han Chinese building.

Ray Haynes re how many people go into Northgate.

Wayne's parting words are that Lend Lease is Sydney centric...

Guest Speaker Thanks by Lew Hills.