GemLife will start trading in Sydney on July 3, following a A$750 million initial public offering — the largest in Australia this year. The listing values the two men’s combined stake at about A$417 million, according to Bloomberg’s calculation.
Four decades ago, Peter Puljich turned a trailer park on Australia’s Gold Coast into a high-end retirement community for the over-50s. The Croatian immigrant reasoned that baby boomers, such as himself, wanted more out of life than to work into old age — they wanted to retire early and downsize in style.
That project to sell homes in the country’s sun-drenched northeast was the starting point to what would lead to GemLife Communities Group. GemLife was created separately in 2015 when Peter and his son Adrian teamed up with Singapore-listed Thakral Corp in a joint venture. It is now a A$1.58 billion ($1.32 billion) business run by Adrian and set to deliver a major payday for the family.
