Anderson Real Estate is a private, family-owned real estate development and management company with assets in Los Angeles, Ventura County, Hawaii, and the Virgin Islands. The Anderson portfolio today spans over 4.5 million square feet and consists of 77 properties across office, retail, mixed-use and industrial assets.
John Anderson was the son of a barber who grew up in Minneapolis and moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA on a hockey scholarship. After graduating from UCLA in 1940, Mr. Anderson earned an MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1942. He passed his CPA exam while serving on the staff of a Navy admiral during World War II. After the war, Mr. Anderson returned to Los Angeles where he worked at the Arthur Andersen & Co. accounting firm during the day and attended Loyola University School of Law at night. In 1953, three years after earning his law degree, he co-founded the Los Angeles law firm of Kindel & Anderson.
Mr. Anderson launched his business holdings in 1956 with the purchase of a Hamm’s beer distributorship in downtown L.A. He then grew his portfolio from a single distributorship to a diversified holding company of beverage distributorships, real estate assets, automobile dealerships, insurance carriers and manufacturing companies. Mr. Anderson was known not only for his business savvy but also for his unwavering ethics; no matter the cost, he always strove to do the right thing.
