Melcor wins Northern Lights award
Melcor may be Edmonton’s largest, oldest and most successful real estate developer, but in some ways it’s still like the little family business started by Louis Timothy Melton in 1923.
While it went public in 1968, the direction and principal ownership of the Meltons has remained constant over three generations.
“It’s described as a public company with a family-company flavour,” says Tim Melton, who is Melcor’s executive chairman and the grandson of its founder.
On Friday, he is accepting the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce Northern Lights Award, which goes to individuals or organizations who have made a positive and lasting contribution to the community.
James Cumming, president and CEO of the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, said Melcor and the Meltons have supported many community and chamber initiatives over the years.
“T hey’ve a lso rea l ly looked after the people that have worked for the Melcor Group,” Cumming said.
“People who start there will spend an extended period of time there because they really know how to build a business and a sense of family and community within the business.”
When notified of the award, Tim Melton wanted it to honour not just himself, but the family and employees, Cumming said.
“I believe Melcor’s culture is that they’re part of the family.”
After being founded by Melton’s grandfather, the real estate company was run by his father Stan from the late 1950s and Tim Melton took over in 1975.
In 1968, Melton Real Estate went public and capitalized on a housing boom, becoming Western Canada’s leading real estate broker. Tim Melton sold the brokerage business to A.E. LePage of Toronto and the renamed Melcor Developments focused on land development, residential construction and commercial development and the company has never looked back.
Melcor’s business empire includes mixed-use residential communities such as Lewis Estates, business and industrial parks, office buildings, retail commercial centres and even four golf courses in Edmonton, Spruce Grove and Kelowna.
The company is also planning to re-enter the residential construction industry after leaving it for about 15 years.
In 2013, Melcor converted most of its commercial portfolio into a real estate investment trust, allowing it to monetize some of the equity in Melcor’s revenueproducing portfolio to fund future growth.
“It gives us great opportunity to grow that part of the business by accessing public markets,” said Ralph Young, Melcor’s former CEO who still sits on its board.
“One of the ironies of Melcor is we’re a public company but we’re very family-orientated and really have not utilized the public markets over the years.”
Melcor’s year-end results have yet to be released, but profit for the first three quarters of 2013 was $44.71 million. That’s actually down nearly 10 per cent from the first nine months of 2012, which executives put down to one-time costs of forming Melcor REIT.
“The company has been successful because we get great results through very good people and that’s been one of our driving values,” said Tim Melton. “It’s always been, you hire good people, motivate them and let them do the job and that’s where we’re probably trending through the years to come — more of a model where we’re professionally run and managed and the family becomes good stewards of the company.”
The family connection continues at Melcor. Tim’s son Patrick and Andy’s son Graham both work at the company. Tim and Andy’s seven brothers and sisters are involved with the family holding company, which owns majority ownership in Melcor.
“We don’t know whether the family brings us together or the business brings us together, but both seem to work real well,” said Tim.
“What’s most amazing is we all get along,” said Andy Melton, Tim’s brother and executive vice-chairman.
“Tim and myself get huge support from our brothers and sisters on what we’re doing. I can tell you though that our outside shareholders are fantastic people and we’re delighted to have them. Tim and I make sure of it as well, but they make sure we’re paying attention to everybody.”
President and CEO Brian Baker lauds Melcor’s fa m i ly va lues, which encourage employee loyalty. Starting out years ago with Melcor by mowing lawns at showhomes and caddying for Tim, he took over the top job from Young, who stepped aside in 2013 after 42 years with Melcor.
“Culture isn’t just one thing at Melcor — it’s the most important thing,” said Baker. “That’s where the family and the company start to dovetail together. You get what I call Melton family values that have long ago entered into the DNA of the company. A lot of the things that make a family strong are the same things you see at Melcor.”