Gemlife, a successful Queensland company was built on a true Australian Croatian ‘rags to riches’ story. It is set to become the biggest IPO (Initial Public Offering) this year on the Australian stockmarket.
According to an article this week on the Commercialrealestate.com.au portal, a family-owned Gold Coast based property developer, GemLife, was this week presented to fund managers. It was presented as the year’s biggest IPO to date.
“While we’ve written plenty about Virgin Australia’s re-listing, the bigger IPO in front of fund managers this week is family-owned Queensland property developer. A cracking Australian migrant story, GemLife,” wrote journalist Anthony Mcdonald.
According to Mcdonald, GemLife’s roots stretch back to the late 1960s. It began when Peter Puljich and his now late wife Zdravka moved from Croatia to Sydney’s Bondi precinct. Their journey included a stint in the Villawood immigration detention centre.
Teaching the trade himself
Puljich taught himself to render on Bondi Beach’s then brick toilet block: “He used to render it, wash it down, re-render,” son Adrian Puljich, who now runs the family-owned business on the Gold Coast, told Mcdonald.
The Puljiches moved to the Gold Coast for Peter’s work as a renderer and plasterer in the early 1980s. Business was booming, especially on the Gold Coast’s exploding high-rise scene. Thus, Puljich Senior bought a caravan park in 1982 to house materials and workers.
Next door to the caravan park, writes Mcdonald in the article, was a retirement village being converted into a land lease community. It was an over-50s style village.
Puljich senior saw the lightweight construction methods – little more than cabins on stumps – and was shocked.
Innovative approach
Puljich junior recalled how his father had remarked ‘How could people be putting their parents in cool rooms?’ Therefore, he went off and designed a different building method. This method would start with a solid concrete slab that remains at the heart of every GemLife home today.
According to the journalist Mcdonald’s piece, Gemlife is today run by 37-year-old Adrian. It has grown to 32 land lease projects, with 15 built or under development, mostly in Queensland. They have 1804 occupied homes and another 10,000 or so pegged for development.
GemLife is a developer, builder, owner and operator, and it is also this year’s biggest IPO candidate to date.
According to the piece in Commercialrealestate.com.au, Puljich junior wants to raise anywhere between $700-$750 million for the initial public offering. This is about $50 million more than Virgin.
If successful, states Mcdonald, it would list with a $1.5 billion-odd market capitalisation. Investors were told that, barring any late mishaps, a prospectus should be lodged with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission later this week.
The Puljiches are well known in the Croatian community on the Gold Coast. Adrian is the current president of the Gold Coast Knights Football Club. Through their family business, they have financially sponsored numerous Croatian community organizations and events. These include several of the past Australian Croatian Soccer Tournaments. GemLife is the major sponsor of this year’s event on the Gold Coast. They were also major sponsors of the OzCro Soccer Show podcast, just to name a few.