The Goodman family’s wealth was established by the late industrialist Sir Patrick Goodman, who co-founded food giant Goodman Fielder. Aged 88, he died at his Motueka home in September last year.
He was a pioneer in New Zealand business, growing the Bakers in Motueka family business to become the transtasman giant, Goodman Fielder Wattie.
Sir Patrick was an active philanthropist, patron of the arts and had a strong interest in public affairs. He started a trust that aimed to build relationships between business and Parliament, donated to Massey University and accepted several government positions on trade related agencies. Sir Patrick was also passionate about supporting his local community.
He also received honours – he was first made a Commander of the British Empire and was later knighted.
Sir Patrick established The Goodman Family Office, which now invests in agriculture, residential property, private and public equity and technology, in addition to its founding shareholding in global property company Goodman Group. The family takes an active role in its investments and looks for ways in which its expertise can add value to the businesses it invests in.
Emerging trends in technology and innovation have become a growing investment focus, as the impacts of the rapid change in technology and consumer behaviour are increasingly felt in the global economy. The family also has philanthropic interests.
Sir Pat’s son, Greg Goodman, is the group chief executive of Goodman Group, one of Australia’s only two truly global property companies – the other being Lendlease.
The chief executive is executing the group’s strategy to focus on owning, developing and managing industrial property in key urban centres around the world.
With almost 80% of its development book based overseas, Goodman is rapidly expanding across strategic markets in the US, Asia and Europe.
It is not only focusing on prime real estate but is also reaping huge benefits from the world's rapidly changing retail environment.
Its top client is Amazon – for every $1 shifted from physical to online retailing, the demand for industrial property space is forecast to triple.
The company is bullish on the growth of e-commerce and expects it to leap by more than 60% in the next couple of years as businesses in that sector continue to look for supply chain efficiencies while consumers expect products to be delivered faster.
Goodman believes in the next 20 years warehouses are likely to look different but its strategy will be the same – to own high-quality properties in strategic locations.
Listed on July 5, 1995, with a market capitalisation of $40 million and eight assets in Sydney worth $75 million, Goodman Group has grown to over $17 billion market capitalisation, with 375 properties over 17.3 million square metres in 16 countries worth almost $40 billion under management. The group has $3.7b of development work in progress.
Goodman says the key to expanding successfully offshore has been providing consistency, a strategy that has been rolled out over the world, moving from Australia and New Zealand in the 1990s to Asia in the early 2000s, Europe in 2005 and the Americas in 2012.