John Gandel Biography
John Gandel is an australian businessman born as Aaron Jonna Gandel in 1935. He resides in nToorak melbourne, victoria. He made his wealth from developing commercial real estate and shopping centres located in melbourne, victoria.
John Gandel
He inherited his wealth from his polish parents who were the founders of the sussan womens clothing chain, he is consistently ranked among the top ten wealthiest Australians by net worth. In 2017, he was ranked seventh with an estimated net worth of A$6.05 billion and in 2016 he had been ranked seventh with US$ 3.2 billion.
John Gandel Age
John is 84 years old as of 2018.
John Gandel Family Tree| Daughter| Grandchildren| Son
John Gandel is the son of Sam and Fay Gandel who were Jewish imigrants from Poland, his parents owned a corsetry store on collins street in Melbourne. He has one sister , Eva Gandel Besen.
John Gandel Wife| Relationship| Married
Gandel is married to Pauline, who , in 2019, was also appointed Companion of the Order of Australia for her work for the community, in humanitarian, philanthropic and fundraising endevours, and in social inclusion, as well as building closer relations between Australia and Japan.
The couple have had four children. They live in Toorak, Melbourne. In 1990, John was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in recognition of his service to business, commerce and to the community.
John Gandel Scholarship| Education
He was educated at Melbourne High School. In May 2006, John was awarded an honorary doctorate of philosophy from Tel Aviv University, the university’s highest honor, for his “business standing, broad leadership roles and philanthropic support in Australia and Israel.
John Gandel Career
In July 1983, the Myer Emporium sold the Chadstone Shopping Centre to theGandel Group for A$37 million, which has since managed and developed the complex into Australia’s biggest shopping mall which is now[when?] valued atover A$3 billion.John’s major assets are 50 per cent shares in Chadstone, and a 17 percent stake in the listed Vicinity Centres that owns the other half.
John also owns significant stakes in listed property companies, besides the stake in Vicinity, worth about A$800 million, and a 15 per cent stake in Sydney-based property group, Charter Hall, in which he invested A$151 million.
In 2012 John sold his stake in the Northland Shopping Centre for A$455 million and announced an A$500 million hotel and office redevelopment at Chadstone in 2011.
In 2006, Gandel bought a 50% stake in Plastro Irrigation Systems, which is an Israeli irrigation company.
John Gandel House| Toorak
Gandel is building a lavish new Mornington Peninsula estate that will be one of the most expensive homes.
Estimated to have cost up to $50 million to build, industry insiders have revealed details of a residence unrivalled in sheer extravagance.
John Gandel House
John Gandel Yacht| Boat
John Gandel luxury yacht
John sold his 56-metre luxury yacht Galaxy for $29 million in 2013 and his mansion in Melbourne’s poshest suburb, Toorak, is said to be the city’s most valuable.
John Gandel Philanthropy
Since 1978, Gandel and his wife, Pauline Gandel, have headed up Gandel Philanthropy, one of the largest philanthropic family funds in Australia which provides grants to charitable community organisations for Jewish and Australian causes.
Gandel’s philanthropy has focused on Judaism, education, medical causes and the arts. In 2010 the family donated A$7.5 million to the National Gallery of Australia; A$1 million to fight devastating bushfires in Victoria, recalling how their own home was destroyed by fire twenty years earlier, and A$1 million to Museums Victoria.
In 2017, John was appointed a Companion (AC) of the Order of Australia for his service to the community as a benefactor and supporter of a range of visual arts and cultural institutions, to youth education, medical and biotechnology innovation programs, to business and to the advancement of philanthropic giving.
John Gandel Forbes| News
Pauline Gandel urges rich listers to give back
The matriarch of the billionaire Gandel family has called on the rich and powerful to step-up their philanthropy after receiving Australia Day’s top honour.
Pauline Gandel is married to John Gandel who owns half of the biggest mall in the southern hemisphere – Melbourne’s Chadstone Shopping Centre – and was ranked seventh on The Australian Financial Review Rich List with wealth of $6.45 billion, ahead of higher-profile billionaires Andrew Forrest and James Packer.
Mr Gandel, who made his fortune investing in shopping centres after selling his Polish-immigrant parents’ stake in the Sussan women’s clothing chain in the 1980s, was awarded the Queen’s Birthday top award in 2017.
Ahead of receiving this year’s Companion of the Order of Australia for her humanitarian, philanthropic and fundraising endeavours as well as to Australian and Japanese relations, Mrs Gandel spoke to The Financial Review to urge other rich listers to do more.“I hope to inspire others to be generous and improve our society,” she said.
“Giving back to the community is at the heart of my family, and my husband John and I, and our children and grandchildren, don’t do it for the accolades. We know that we have been very fortunate in life and we feel a strong obligation to give back, to contribute, and to help others less fortunate to build fulfilling lives.”Mrs Gandel dedicated the award to “all those trying to help those in need” and said it was recognition for all the causes and organisations I have been supporting from arts and culture to medical research, indigenous programs to building social cohesion, inclusion, funding and supporting for both the Jewish and general community.
Her work began decades ago when she single-handedly ran an op shop at the Chadstone Shopping Centre for over a decade generating some $1.6 million dollars in sales for the Jewish Museum of Australia and Vision Australia.
She and her husband established Gandel Philanthropy over 40 years ago which has distributed over $100 million to charitable causes since its formation.
Her interest in early childhood development forged some ground-breaking projects, most notably the much-loved and multi-sensory Pauline Gandel Children’s Gallery at Melbourne Museum.
The couple decided to fund the DNA Sequencing machine at the Monash Health Precinct in 2006, helping to seed the growth of genomics.
In 2008, she supported the Royal Women’s Hospital to purchase a state-of-the-art MRI machine to help revolutionise the care provided to women and newborn babies.
Mrs Gandel’s love of all things Japanese is also well-known, especially tea drinking, lacquer and porcelain and was instrumental setting-up the Pauline Gandel Gallery of Japanese Art at the NGV in 2012, regarded today as the most important collection of Japanese art in Australia.
