{"id":5546,"date":"2008-09-27T20:19:18","date_gmt":"2008-09-28T04:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=5546"},"modified":"2008-11-12T08:21:10","modified_gmt":"2008-11-12T16:21:10","slug":"the-aussie-mall-baron-who-fights-the-taxman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=5546","title":{"rendered":"The Aussie Mall Baron Who Fights The Taxman"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Bloomberg<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/div>\n
\"More<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) — Billionaire Frank Lowy, Holocaust survivor, one-time Israeli commando and now the world’s biggest shopping mall landlord, raises his hand to his forehead to indicate a shrapnel scar hidden beneath a shock of white hair.<\/p>\n

As a 13-year-old Jewish boy in Nazi-occupied Budapest during World War II, Lowy supported his mother by foraging for food after his father was deported to Auschwitz and beaten to death by a camp guard.<\/p>\n

He got the head wound helping Israel fight for independence from 1947 to ’49 after he’d joined the exodus to Palestine.<\/p>\n

Lowy carries inner scars as well.<\/p>\n

“All those events shaped my life,” says the founder and chairman of Westfield Group<\/a>, owner of 118 malls stretching from Century City in Los Angeles to Bondi Junction in Australia as he sits in his headquarters overlooking Sydney Harbor. “It’s a requirement here to have some sort of paranoia. You have to think of what can go wrong even when times are good. So you can never enjoy your success fully.”<\/p>\n

Six decades later, Lowy, 77, is sharpening his survival instincts once again. After selling properties and cutting debt to insulate his empire and its 63 billion Australian dollars ($51 billion) in assets against the global real estate slump and what’s become a financial crisis on Wall Street, he’s embroiled in his third bout in 16 years with tax authorities.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service and the Australian Taxation Office<\/a>, or ATO, are investigating claims he hid $68 million from tax officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Bloomberg: Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) — Billionaire Frank Lowy, Holocaust survivor, one-time Israeli commando and now the world’s biggest shopping mall landlord, raises his hand to his forehead to indicate a shrapnel scar hidden beneath a shock of white hair. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12980],"tags":[13002,13005,12990,7290,13003,13004],"class_list":["post-5546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-peter-lowy","tag-australian-taxation-office","tag-bondi-junction","tag-frank-lowy","tag-holocaust-survivor","tag-survival-instincts","tag-westfield-group"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t