Local boy back with $3 billion

By ANNE GIBSON

Lawyer-turned-property investor Peter Cooper vanished from New Zealand nearly 15 years ago with hardly a trace.

The sharemarket crash had ruined his businesses and opportunities, so he picked up where he left off as a schoolboy.

At 38, he decided to try his luck again in the United States, but this time with wife Sue and five children in tow, including two sets of twins.

Now, Cooper is on the line from his Newport Beach office, in southern California, on a warm day, chatting about what happened when he and his family cleared off in 1989.

The Kiwi accent is unchanged, except that he uses American idioms, like starting his sentences with "well?", said with a rising intonation.

By very rough estimates, Cooper controls a US fortune that could easily be worth well over $3 billion, though he is not specific about the money. Could he be our first multi-billionaire?

He owns investments in Silicon Valley high-tech innovative businesses, hedge funds and venture capital outfits. He named a US shopping centre after himself and has a new property empire deep in the heart of Texas.

Prone to get a little vague when pressed about exact numbers, he will admit that he and American partner Brian Stebbins sold a handful of giant US shopping centres for $257 million, which went to their company Cooper & Stebbins, with offices in California and Texas.

That money is helping to pay for Southlake Town Centre, a mini-city near Dallas that will eventually be 350,000sq m, 10 times the size of St Lukes in Auckland.

Southlake is an open-air, 1930s-styled townscape which mimics traditional downtown areas with sidewalks and tree-lined plazas. It will become a community for thousands when it is finished and is only four years into development .

Pressed, Cooper admits Southlake could be valued at more than $800 million when it is completed, spanning 52ha on a block 10 minutes' drive from the area's financial engine, Dallas-Fort Worth Airport.

Another Cooper business is hedge fund Cooper & LeVasseur, which holds stakes in four New York Stock Exchange-listed companies which Cooper says are each valued at well over $1.7 billion.

"These are billion-dollar companies," he casually remarks. And he is talking US dollars. "These are companies which are in transition which have something wrong with them, and it's all a question of adding value." And, no, he will not name the companies.

"It's our intellectual capital so we don't tell anyone who we invest in." No website, either.

Cooper featured in the Dallas Morning News as a person who simply "doesn't grant interviews", as opposed to the more flamboyant Stebbins, "who relishes being front and centre".

Even Stebbins admits his business partner has become fabulously wealthy, but cites the depth of the US financial investment markets and a consistent approach as reasons behind the success.

Stebbins lives at Southlake. Cooper spends his life travelling from California to Texas and back here, where Stebbins says he spends "at least half his time now".

A third part of Cooper's fortune is held via Cooper Capital, a venture capitalist which finances new technologies, particularly in the dotcom and medical businesses in the Californian belts.

Take as an example Calnetix at Cerritos, California. This innovative magnetic technologies enterprise has invented a high-speed generator for microturbine applications. See www.calnetix.com for the turbines which rotate at more than 40,000 revs per minute and are expected to revolutionise the generation industry by their low running costs, compact size, light weight and low emissions.

Given the scope of his US investments, Cooper could well be far richer than New Zealand's richest man, Graeme Hart, estimated to have $1.2 billion.

Cooper still holds a New Zealand passport and his five children - two sets of twins aged 23 and 18 and a 21-year old - are proud of their Kiwi citizenship, even though they grew up in California. The Coopers come back often, especially for Christmas holidays at their beach house at Pakiri.

Cooper had top architect Pip Cheshire of Jasmax design him an exceptional home at Takapuna which was finished just before Christmas, a seaside monolith sprawling low and long on the clifftop, grey and without pretension. It is the family's pad here and home for Cooper's mother and mother-in-law.

Interiors were designed by Terry Hunziker, who featured on the list of the top 100 in Architectural Digest. Cooper used Hunziker for his Californian and Texas offices and for the boathouse in the Bay of Islands which Cooper and Stebbins bought two years ago. Their rolling, coastal 333ha sheep and cattle farm near the Marsden Cross stone monument south of Kauri Cliffs will be subdivided.

"It's something Peter is spearheading," Stebbins says from Texas. "We've preserved the pastures there and want to sell parts of it to people who appreciate the preservation and historical aspects of it."

Factfile:

Born Kaitaia, 1951, attended Kaitaia College.

Went to the US as a schoolboy Field scholar.

Moved to Auckland, went to university, worked at Russell McVeagh in Auckland.

Mid-1980s founded Mace Development, involved in Lion Nathan merger.

Late 1980s, moved to California with family after sharemarket crash.

1989, founded Cooper & Stebbins and other companies.

1990s, completed four giant US malls sold for $US150 million.

Late 1990s, began building the $860 million Southlake township in Texas.

2001, bought 333ha Bay of Islands sheep and beef farm.

2002, completed Takapuna house, designed by Pip Cheshire at Jasmax.

Late 2002, entered bid to complete Auckland's Britomart project.