Commentary5:37 PM, 6 Aug 2009 Robert GottliebsenRufrano the...

Commentary
5:37 PM, 6 Aug 2009 Robert Gottliebsen
Rufrano the Reasonable
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I will miss Glenn Rufrano when he pulls up stumps at Centro next year. There are few people in the world with a better handle on what American consumers are doing.

Right now, he tells me that they have not lifted their spending and will not lift spending until unemployment starts to decline. However there are new US retail operations looking to replace those that went bankrupt, which should lift Centro occupancy.

Australia has every reason to be grateful to Rufrano. When he took the Centro helm in January 2008, he faced a wall of panicky banks who were acting out of instinct and their instinct was to pull the plug and sell at any price.

Had they done so, the retail property market in Australia would have slumped and we would have had a much harder time. The cool head of Rufrano – plus the fact that the banks were unsecured and would have lost billions – saved the day.

However, in other troubled enterprises, which did not have the benefit of a Rufrano, the banks pulled the plug even though it was not always in their best interests.

Rufrano says that Centro needs a long term CEO based in Australia who will see the group through the next stage. And he is probably right but he will leave a gap in our scene, because there are few executives who can move between the US and Australian banks, institutions and, most importantly, customers.

credit where credit is due cheers