One of Perth’s largest family offices is marking 30 years in the business.
Addressing the 300 people gathered outside Lamont’s Bishops House in late November, Hawaiian chief executive Russell Gibbs covered the company’s three-decade history in a matter of minutes.
“Who would have thought, in 1993 when Chiu Chi [Wen]’s mother and father came to this place called Perth, that they thought was a nice little place to buy a small investment … that three decades later they will have transacted in the billions of dollars’ worth of property, employed thousands of staff … and … contributed many, many dollars to the Western Australian community,” he said.
Mr Gibbs was referring to Tan Sri and Paun Sri Wen, Malaysia-based entrepreneurs who looked to WA as a place to expand their property empire in the early 1990s.
That was where Brett Wilkins came in.
The then Jones Lang Wootton (JLL) partner was referred via the agency’s Kuala Lumpur office to Tan Sri Wen in 1992.
“I met him, and he said, ‘I’m happy to buy in Perth, but it’s got to be ten per cent return and $1,000 a metre’,” Mr Wilkins told Business News.
“At the time I thought ‘good luck with that one’.”
Mr Wilkins, now Ray White Commercial WA director of capital markets, met the businessman 23 times before Mr Wen settled on 16 St Georges Terrace.
The company bought the 12-storey office building from then owner of Burswood Casino, Victoria Co, and Town & Country Bank.
The $10 million asset formed the basis of Hawaiian, with the name chosen by chance.
“The thing a lot of people want to know is where the name Hawaiian came from,” Mr Wilkins said.
“When we purchased 16 St Georges Terrace, we had to get a two-dollar company as a trustee, and on the list of company names available that day was Hawaiian Investments.”
Given the Wens had a daughter studying at the University of Hawaii at the time, the name was considered as good as any.
Hawaiian as an entity was formed in 1993, when Mr Wilkins was appointed as the company’s inaugural chief executive.
He said the move simply felt right.
“I don’t think I thought too much about it,” Mr Wilkins said.
“I got on well with Tan Sri, I’d had 10 years at Jones Lang, I wanted to have a change.”
Hawaiian quickly grew its asset base via a series of acquisitions, including Bassendean Village, the Parmelia Hilton hotel and Carillon Arcade.
The family office managed to expand its wealth during the economic uncertainty of the recession-hit 1990s.
“Business in Australia was pretty bloody difficult in the early nineties,” Mr Wilkins said.
“You had to look past the recession that was going on in Australian property then.”
Mr Wilkins oversaw the purchase of several of Hawaiian’s key assets, including Claremont Arcade, the Park Centre, Noranda Palms, 186, 218 and 182 St Georges Terrace, as well as the Bishops See precinct that includes Lamont’s.
In 1994, Hawaiian bought London House at 216 St Georges Terrace for $28.56 million from UK Property Group Knightsbridge Investments.
The company divested the 18-storey office building to low-profile billionaire Leonie Baldock for $102 million last year.
The family office’s purchase of the Australian Capital Properties portfolio included Broome’s Cable Beach Resort, Norcape Lodge in Exmouth, the Bishops See leasehold and a selection of Australian art and artefacts.
The company since divested the Exmouth asset and a portion of the art.
Hawaiian bought its debut asset, 16 St Georges Terrace, for $10 million in 1993.
Reshaping
Mr Wilkins finished his tenure as chief executive in 2000 when family patriarch Tan Sri Wen died.
This marked a shift in direction for the company, with Tan Sri Wen’s son Chiu Chi Wen appointed as managing director.
Hawaiian’s current chief executive, Russell Gibbs, who joined the company in 1996, stepped up to lead the family office in 2000.
Speaking to Business News from the Wen family office in Cottesloe, Mr Gibbs reflected on how ‘lifestyle’ had partly influenced his move from primary school teaching to real estate in the late 1980s.
At that time, he was living with former JLL managing director Peter Agostino.
“I joined Jones Lang in 1989, and that’s because I was sharing a house with Peter Agostino,” Mr Gibbs said.
“His lifestyle was better than a teaching lifestyle, so I figured it was a good idea to shift.”
Mr Gibbs was working as a junior negotiator with JLL on some of Hawaiian’s assets when he caught Mr Wilkins’ attention.
Having already received an offer to join a rival firm, Mr Gibbs later received an approach from Hawaiian.
“I got offered a job to work somewhere else. Brett Wilkins was running the show [at Hawaiian] at the time, and he asked what they [headhunters] were paying me to [leave JLL]’,” Mr Gibbs said.
Hawaiian offered Mr Gibbs about $40,000, which was 30 per cent more than he was on at JLL.
“It seemed like a good deal,” he said.
In 2002, two years after Mr Gibbs became Hawaiian chief executive, he recruited Damian Gordon as chief financial officer.
Mr Gordon was tasked with bringing Hawaiian’s property management services in-house, which led to considerable growth in staff numbers.
“The day I started I think there were a dozen of us in the office,” Mr Gordon told Business News.
“We’d just taken on management of Cable Beach the year before, but all of the property management was outsourced.
“We were very much an interested owner, but not a hands-on manager, and Russell’s view, which didn’t take me long to jump on board with was [that] it didn’t make a lot of sense having an agent between the owner and the tenant.
“It made a lot more sense to bring property management in-house.”
By 2003, Hawaiian had grown to about 50 staff, as a result of incorporating its own property management arm.
Mr Gordon spent 15 years as CFO before transitioning into an executive director position.
Richard Kilbane, the company’s current chief operating officer, joined Hawaiian in 2005 as a project manager.
Mr Kilbane told Business News he was drawn to Hawaiian by the opportunity to work on Mount Hawthorn Plaza (now The Mezz), which it acquired a year earlier.
“There was an ad in the paper,” he said.
“It was the opportunity to work on the Mezz Project in Mt Hawthorn. It didn’t look like what it looks like today; it was a sloping car park, so it was really Hawaiian’s first retail repositioning.”
Mr Kilbane also worked on the transformation of Claremont Arcade into Claremont Quarter, which Hawaiian still owns.
Brett Wilkins was instrumental in Hawaiian's growth during its early years. Photo: Michael O'Brien
Additionally, he worked on the Colonnade at 388 Hay Street in Subiaco, which was sold to Realside in 2019 for $37.85 million, as well as Hawaiian’s Pitt Street office asset in Sydney.
Hawaiian swapped Pitt Street with Stockland in 2006 for Perth office building Durack Centre on Adelaide Terrace.
“The balance sheet had a bunch of assets that needed an opportunity to create some new value, create some new impact, so I was able to ride that wave and do that,” Mr Kilbane said.
Mr Kilbane was appointed to his current role in October 2021.
Business News understands Mr Kilbane is in line to replace Mr Gibbs as the company’s chief executive, but Hawaiian did not confirm the move.
Engaging
Hawaiian sold its first asset, 16 St Georges Terrace, in 2001 to property investor Jacky Mulani for $16.4 million, after upgrading its lobby.
The group sold Carillon, with joint venture partner Brookfield, to Dexus for $140 million in 2016.
The asset was last year sold to Andrew and Nicola Forrest’s Fiveight for $80 million, with the company intending to redevelop the retail arcade.
Hawaiian also entered a joint venture with Brookfield for Bishops See, which resulted in the development of the KPMG building at 235 St Georges Terrace in 2009.
The company also works with major land developers including Nigel Satterley, LWP, Dale Alcock’s Parcel Property, Peet and Qube Property Group.
It has also invested in a number of property syndicates over the years, including Primewest and Elanor Investments.
In its early years, Hawaiian worked with Adrian Fini on multiresidential developments in various parts of Perth, as well as Queensland property giant Kevin Seymour.
The group dabbled in industrial property in the 2000s, acquiring assets in Canning Vale and Kewdale, but exited that space around 2012.
“We’ve played in everything from land subdivision to apartment development, funding, we did a bit of mezzanine lending for a while,” Mr Gordon said.
“But I think the core DNA is community and people engagement.
“So, I think the bit that probably gets us most excited is around the shopping centres, the resort, hotel, where there’s a personable engagement.”
Retail has become a large focus for Hawaiian, with 11 shopping centre assets under its belt.
Speaking to Business News for a retail feature earlier this year, Mr Kilbane described neighbourhood retail as the company’s bread and butter.
“Our first assets were Bassendean Shopping Centre and Noranda Shopping Centre, so we’re used to the way these assets perform over time … and the nuances that come with them,” Mr Kilbane said.
Further, according to Mr Gibbs, the shopping centre space aligned closely with Hawaiian’s philanthropic spirit.
“The centres as a platform to impact community, that’s really what we’re trying to achieve,” Mr Gibbs said.
“Particularly around areas like focusing on people feeling like they belong, making sure that people aren’t lonely.
“I think loneliness is going to be one of the biggest issues going forward as a society.”
Hawaiian’s partnership with Youth Focus on cycling charity event Ride for Youth has resulted in $32 million raised for the youth mental health organisation since 2003.
The ride has become a way for participants to rub shoulders with Perth’s elite, attracting past riders including Roger Cook, David Flanagan, Dean Mudford, Mary Hackett and former US consul general Cynthia Griffin.
The Wen family’s philanthropic arm, Wen Giving, partners with organisations across the globe to support society’s vulnerable people.
It currently partners with Lions Eye Institute in the Kimberley.
Hawaiian’s Giving Box – giant boxes in its shopping centres for donations to food relief organisation Foodbank WA – is in its 11th year.
