L. J. Hooker - History

History

The company was established in 1928 by Sir Leslie Joseph Hooker in Maroubra, New South Wales. Leslie Joseph Hooker was born Leslie Joseph Tingyou to an Australian mother and a Chinese father. Believing his Chinese name would be a disadvantage when conducting business in Australia, he changed his surname by deed to Hooker, either after his favourite position in rugby union or because his father was employed on the railroad as a hooker. In 1935 he opened the first city office of LJ Hooker at 12 O’Connell Street, Sydney. In 1936 the business expanded into Kensington, New South Wales, Kingsford, New South Wales and Randwick, New South Wales. By 1938 the company was in the position to purchase H.L. Cross & Co. and relocated to the heart of the city on the corner of Martin Place and Pitt Street. After the Depression and the Second World War, the company floated on the Australian Stock Exchange on 1 July 1947.

LJ Hooker Investment Corporation Limited was formed in 1958 to allow LJ Hooker to deal with a more diverse range of real estate areas including hotel and leisure, music, land and building trusts, pastoral holdings and housing and land subdivision. In 1958 Hooker bought Festival Records from its original owners, the merchant bank Mainguard, and he even established his own boutique label, Rex, (named after his Sydney hotel) as a Festival subsidiary. But Festival was losing money during this period, just prior to the beginning of the Sixties pop boom, and Hooker eventually sold the struggling label to News Limited in 1961.

In 1973, LJ Hooker was knighted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of his service to commerce and the community in Australia.

In 1980 the real estate division had spread across every state of Australia when they opened the first office in Perth, Western Australia.

In the mid 1980s, while led briefly by CEO George Herscu, LJ Hooker crossed into development and acquisition of retailers and large scale shopping complexes in the United States. This move proved ill-conceived, with such questionable ventures as the purchase and operation of several storied but troubled American department store chains as B. Altman & Co., Bonwit Teller, Sakowitz and Parisian stores, to be utilized as anchors for a number of large, but poorly located shopping malls in the United States. Having no track record in understanding the complex operations required to run retail department stores, and with the questionable locations of many of the proposed malls, coupled with forcing the newly acquired anchor stores into locations with no previous market presence, this venture proved deeply flawed and plunged L.J.Hooker, the department stores and its various development holdings into bankruptcy.

Most of the department store chains were liquidated with large economic and employment losses. The one mall complex that was constructed during Herscu's tenure, the Forest Fair Mall in suburban Cincinnati, Ohio, went through numerous changes in ownership and operations. Today the ill-fated mall is still struggling, having gone through two name changes. This period, although brief in its history, was deeply timultuous and troubling and led to LJ Hooker Limited being purchased by the Queensland based Suncorp-Metway Limited, in January 1990.

In 1997 they opened offices in Hong Kong and Papua New Guinea.

In 1996 LJ Hooker purchased the Challenge Realty Group in New Zealand and in 1998 they rebranded them literally overnight as LJ Hooker. In 2003 LJ Hooker purchased the real estate franchise group Olsen & Everson. In 2002 LJ Hooker opened its first offices in Indonesia, and in 2004 LJ Hooker opened offices in Mumbai, India and Shanghai, China.

In October 2004, Grahame Cooke stepped down as CEO and was replaced by Warren McCarthy. McCarthy was selected from within the existing LJ Hooker network and in The Australian Financial Review, he stated that "It was important that the chief executive be an LJ Hooker person. There is an inherent culture. It is very much a family and there is passing on of generations of knowledge in auctions, good property management and good referral systems."

In October 2009 Suncorp confirmed it sold its LJ Hooker real estate chain business to Janusz Hooker - the grandson of founder Sir Leslie Hooker - for $67 million.

In November 2010, LJ Hooker acquired Harveys Real Estate Group in New Zealand.