I would rather sell a building at an honest price this year than ask securityholders to wait on a value I could not defend to a buyer.
I am managing director and chief executive of Corvalla Property Group, an ASX-listed stapled group based in Melbourne. We own A$7.4 billion of office towers, logistics estates, neighbourhood shopping centres and rental apartments, and manage a further A$4.7 billion for two overseas pension investors who co-own parts of the portfolio with us. About 610 people work for the group, 140 of them in our build-to-rent buildings. I report to our chair, Philippa Rowcroft, and to a board of eight on which I am the only executive.
I did not arrive through property finance. My first post, in 1994, was as a strategic planner at the City of Kallanbrook on Melbourne's western fringe, drawing up the plans that told developers where roads, drains and schools would go. Five years later I crossed the counter to Yarrendale Communities, a family-owned land developer, and learnt what a council's timetable costs the people waiting on it. From 2006 I ran development and then a fund at Tannock Industrial Partners, an unlisted logistics manager in Sydney, through the 2008–09 credit squeeze. Corvalla recruited me in 2013 to build its logistics business. I became chief investment officer in 2017 and chief executive in 2021.
Since 2021 most of my work has been changing what Corvalla owns while the market argued about what it was worth. Office was 54% of our balance sheet when I took over; it is now 32%. We commissioned independent valuations of every tower in a falling market, sold four of them, reset the distribution and moved the money into logistics and rental housing. I have also changed how we contract builders and how we approach planning authorities. Not all of those calls were right, and on this site I try to say which were not.
Office cut from 54% to 32% of the portfolio
Between 2023 and 2025 we sold four office towers for A$1.46 billion, on average 8.7% below their June 2022 book values. Gearing fell from 36.1% to 29.8%, and the proceeds funded 186,000 square metres of logistics development at a 6.4% yield on cost.
Valuations brought forward rather than deferred
In December 2022 I asked the board for independent valuations of all eleven office towers instead of directors' valuations on six of them. The write-down was A$412 million. The four towers we later sold settled within 3% of those reduced values.
A building contract that shares only the risks each side can carry
For a 410-home rental tower in Parramatta we replaced fixed-price bids of up to A$352 million with a two-stage, open-book contract. The final cost was A$327 million, 1.9% above the agreed stage-two price, and five builders now bid for our towers instead of two.
Fewer homes, approved sooner
In Footscray we redesigned a refused 19-storey proposal at 13 storeys instead of appealing. We gave up 118 homes and some return. The permit came five months after lodging, and 284 homes, 43 of them let to key workers at discounted rents, are due in December 2026.
Current focus
Two pieces of work dominate my FY27. The first is the last stage of our office strategy: deciding, tower by tower, which of our seven remaining buildings we will refit for tenants who now want less space of better quality, and which we will sell. The second is funding the next 890 rental homes, in Brisbane and Adelaide, without adding to group gearing. That means bringing a third capital partner into the build-to-rent platform on terms that keep our securityholders' share of the economics easy to see.
Conversations I welcome
I am not in the market for another executive post. With my own board's agreement I would accept one non-executive directorship with an owner of infrastructure, health or education property where Corvalla has no competing, tenancy or lending relationship. I also accept a few invitations a year to speak on capital allocation, construction contracts and rental housing supply, and I am glad to compare notes with other listed property chief executives.
