Property and investment fund heavyweight Greg Paramor AO (pictured below) has joined the Eureka board, taking them to four directors, small for a listed company, and one that has not been without its challenges.
It makes sense as Paramor’s Folkestone took a 5% interest in Eureka in 2018, just before he sold Folkestone to property fund giant Charter Hall, where he now sits on their board.
Paramor made his name establishing Growth Equities Mutual which he grew to $1.5 billion before selling out in 1992.
He then created Paladin, and repeated the growth and sale – it is now Dexus. Then James Fielder which was sold for $478 million after just three years to Mirvac, which Paramor then became CEO. That was followed by co-buying LJ Hooker for around five years and its sale, then establishing Folkestone, which he also briefly took into the retirement village sector.
Eureka and Ingenia are the only two serious players in the rental village market. Eureka has had a very colourful past, rising out of the ashes of Sunnycove Villages and Village Life pre-GFC, portfolios which at the time accounted or around 55 rental villages.
Insolvency experts KordaMentha and mining entrepreneur Robin Levison worked with Gold Coast operator Greg Rekers to clean up the operations, with the prize being massive tax losses that had accumulated. They are still enjoying them today. See the result below – ‘before and after’ tax:
Several CEOs have since rotated through the business and today they are led by their Chief Operating Officer Cameron Taylor, an ex-Westfield senior QLD executive.
With occupancy up at 94% and profitable, and an economy facing years of challenges, affordable quality rental housing for seniors will be in very high demand.
Watch this space.
