Mirvac Group Ltd

Mirvac was founded in 1972 by Robert Hamilton and Henry Pollack. The latter was a Holocaust survivor who came to Australia amidst World War Two and paid his way through an architecture degree by running a dress shop. The former was one-time medicine student who decided to become a real estate agent. Hamilton, who was advising companies on how to go about developments got the urge to do it himself. After 2 years of going at it alone, he met Pollack as a would-be prospect to sell a building, but the pair left with a deal for Hamilton to find Pollock build-to-sell development sites. The first development was Montrose, a block of 12 apartments in Rose Bay. Initially the company focused on inner city areas, but in the late 70s pivoted to home and land packages in the growing outer suburbs of Sydney and to commercial developments. The first of the latter was ‘The Landmark’ which was completed in 1980. 1987 saw the company’s IPO. The 1990s and 2000s saw more developments, most famously an urban renewal of Melbourne’s Docklands area, the redevelopment of Waverley Park, the renewal of Burswood in Perth and Walsh Bay in Sydney – the latter was so popular that $400m in real estate was sold in a single day upon its release. 2005 was a key year with the company merging with James Fielding, in a $478m deal that enabled Bob Hamilton to retire (Pollack retired in 1996 and passed away in 2005). Initially, JFG boss Greg Paramor took the reigns only to hand it to Nicholas Collishaw in 2008 just prior to the GFC, and he served until 2012 when Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz took over. Under her tenure, the company became more focused on medium to high density residential/commercial projects in inner cities and one of the first projects under her watch was the renewal of Glebe’s Harold Park. The company has also placed more of an emphasis on sustainability including having minimal carbon usage and being water efficient. In the latter half of her tenure, Mirvac saw an opportunity in the Build to Rent (BTR) space, thinking it could work in Australia as it did in other countries. It has taken longer than expected to get things off the ground, but the first BTR community was launched in 2020 (LIV Indigo). In 2021, it became the first property company to become carbon positive (9 years ahead of schedule). Lloyd-Hurwitz retired in 2022 and was replaced by Capbell Hanan.