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Published in Crikey (June 27, 2006) (Crikey.com.au)

Rupert Murdoch (1931- )

Stands out clearly as Australia’s most successful businessman — now an American for convenience! He is the only Australian who rates as one of the all time world’s top businessmen. His father Sir Keith Murdoch, a self-started journalist, died when Rupert was in his early 20s. Rupert Murdoch gambled his then relatively small Australian newspaper business to expand internationally in the UK and US. In the UK, The Sun and News of the World newspapers changed UK journalism forever. Rupert Murdoch’s 1985 US takeover of the Fox entertainment group enabled him to successfully compete with the too comfortable US TV networks — NBC, CBS and ABC.

Kerry Packer (1937-2005)

Like Rupert Murdoch, Packer inherited a significant media business from his father, Sir Frank. However, both Packer and Murdoch significantly enhanced their fathers’ media empire as a result of their own unique skills.

Packer, having taken control after Sir Frank died in 1974, immediately used the skills of his senior executives to maximum effect (I mention some of them in my paper ‘Everyone knows the difference between right and wrong’). Packer and his team became the masters of cross marketing (promoting) celebrities, specific Packer magazines and TV programs in Packer’s many magazines and Channel Nine, which clearly became ‘The One’ for at least 30 years.

Frank Lowy (1936- )

In 1958 Lowy and Jack Saunders developed their first shopping centre at Bankstown, New South Wales. By the mid-1980s, Lowy was head of property giant Westfield Holdings, changing the structure of the industry by constructing massive shopping centres, not only in Australia but in the US and Britain. Together with John O’Neil, Lowy is responsible for the revitalisation of the Australian Soccer Industry.

Sir Arvi Parbo (1926- )

In 1956 Parbo began a long career with Western Mining Corporation (WMC), initially working as an underground surveyor and mining engineer. Appointed General Manager in 1968 and Managing Director in 1971, Parbo was Chairman during a period of rapid expansion and diversification (1974-91). He was also a Director (1987-89) and Chairman (1989-92) of BHP and Chairman of Alcoa from 1978 -1996.

Victor Smorgon (1913- )

Butcher from the Ukraine, Gershon Smorgon arrived in Melbourne in 1927. By World War II Smorgon was running an expanding abattoir and meat-export business, as well as a food canning works. However, Smorgon’s big break came after the War when in 1948 he persuaded American meat importers to buy Australian rabbit meat — a market he soon cornered.

Victor Smorgon and his family then diversified into manufacturing paper, glass and steel.

Geoffrey Donaldson (1913- )

Began his career working for Perpetual Trustees, rising to the level of Senior Trust Officer before joining the War effort in 1939. After returning, Donaldson continued to show his unique ability to survive, this time in the stock broking business, especially when it came to raising money and underwriting Woodside Oil Co new share issues. For 28 years Donaldson was Woodside’s Chairman. The company made major gas and condensate discoveries near Broome and Dampier in WA. Today, with BHP Billiton, it is Australia’s premier oil and gas company.

Reginald Ansett (1909-1981)

In 1931 founded his first transport business using a Studebaker car to run passenger services between Ballarat and Maryborough. In 1935 Ansett began a daily Melbourne-Hamilton air service with only one aircraft — by 1946 this had developed into Ansett Transport Industries.

Between 1957-1990 Ansett Airlines monopolised the Australian air services industry, with the Government-owned Trans-Australia Airlines (TAA) its only competitor.

Lang Hancock (1909-1992)

Hancock was a part-time prospector and a pioneer of the aerial prospecting method. In 1936 Hancock found blue asbestos in Wittenoom Gorge — which he began mining commercially two years later. Hancock’s most famous find was in 1952 when he found the world’s largest iron ore deposit in the Pilbara region. He struck a royalty agreement with the mining giant Rio Tinto and subsequently became one of Australia’s wealthiest people.

Sir Ian McLennan (1909-1998)

McLennan’s family owned and operated flour mills in Mooroopna near Shepparton. In the late 1960s the flour business merged with the Kimpton and Minifie flour mills, before in 1972 merging with Henry Jones (IXL) and in 1981 Elders GM (Chairman of Elders IXL 1981-1985).

McLennan was responsible for the significant Post-War expansion of Australia’s iron and steel industry, and established Australia’s export of iron ore to Japan. He joined the BHP Board of Directors in 1953, becoming Senior General Manager in November 1955. In the late 1950s, McLennan negotiated with Lewis Weeks to take BHP into oil and gas exploration in Bass Strait. In April 1971, Ian McLennan was appointed Chairman of BHP, a position he held until his retirement in 1977.

Sir Keith Murdoch (1885-1952)

Started as a freelance journalist for The Age in 1903 and as an Age cadet in the Federal Press Gallery in 1910. By the time he died in 1952 Murdoch was Chairman of The Herald and Weekly Times, Australia’s largest media company. At the same time he became a newspaper proprietor in his own right. Murdoch purchased the West Australian in 1926 as part of a syndicate, which he sold in the early 1930s. By the 1930s Murdoch had a stake in, or owned outright, the Adelaide Register and Advertiser, Brisbane's Daily Mail and Courier (which became the Courier-Mail), as well as interests in 11 of Australia's 65 commercial radio stations. In 1949 Murdoch bought The Herald and Weekly Times' holding in the Adelaide News and personally increased his holding in the Brisbane Courier-Mail. Murdoch’s Queensland newspaper interests were sold to pay death duties leaving the Adelaide News to his four children.

He was responsible for changing the way Australian companies reported profits by publishing their profits in the afternoon Melbourne Herald the day they were released to the Melbourne Stock Exchange rather than in the following day’s morning newspapers.

Disclosure: Keith Murdoch was responsible for introducing public opinion polling in Australia, 'designed to reveal what Australians thought of important questions of the day'. In 1940 he sent Roy Morgan to America to learn the public opinion polling and advertising/media research business with Dr George Gallup. Results from media research surveys conducted by Sir Keith Murdoch in the 1940s were used as the basis for the layout and content of The Sun News-Pictorial (today, Herald-Sun), which became and still is Australia’s largest circulation daily newspaper.

Sir George Coles (1885-1977)

Opened his first store in Collingwood in 1914, selling stock purchased in America. After serving in WWI, Coles returned to Melbourne, opening a larger store in 1919 and launching a proprietary company in 1921. During his time as Managing Director the Coles Company expanded rapidly, opening many stores in Melbourne and Sydney. Although relinquishing Managing Director due to poor health, Coles stayed on a Chairman until 1956. In his later years Coles dedicated most of his time to charity work and was knighted for his efforts in 1957.

Sidney Myer (1878-1934)

After migrating to Australia in 1898 he ran a draper’s store in Bendigo with his brother, Elcon Baevski. In 1911 he established a drapery shop in Bourke Street, Melbourne before opening the 8 storey Myer Emporium in 1914. A dedicated philanthropist and benefactor, he financed Charles Kingsford Smith’s 1928 trans-Pacific flight.

Sir Walter Carpenter (1877-1954)

W.R. Carpenter & Co. Ltd. was founded by Walter Randolph Carpenter (later to become Sir Walter) in 1914 as a small private company.

Carpenter’s fortune was amassed during the 1930s depression when his company was able to buy many island plantations at bedrock prices. During the depression his company maintained its dividend rate unchanged at 8 per cent.

At their peak W.R. Carpenter operated nine major companies (plus subsidiaries) in Fiji and New Guinea and fourteen (plus subsidiaries) in Australia.

Using retained earnings W R Carpenter & Co purchased substantial shareholdings in Southern Pacific Insurance, Associated Securities, CAGA, Dalton Brothers Holdings, Ansett Transport Industries, Neon Holdings and Woolworths.

Achalen Woolliscroft Palfreyman (1875-1967)

Aged 14 he began working at Launceston’s Examiner but soon moved to Peacock’s Jam Factory, which he took over in 1891 with fellow employees including Henry Jones. Palfreyman remained a Director of Henry Jones IXL for 74 years and succeeded Jones as Chairman (1926-65). The company expanded internationally and diversified into fruit production, construction, prospecting and tin dredging.

Sir William Angliss (1865-1957)

Educated in England, Angliss migrated to Australia during 1884, eventually moving to Melbourne where in 1886 he opened his first butcher shop in North Carlton and another in Bourke Street.

It wasn’t long before Angliss had built a pastoral empire — operating meatworks at Footscray in Melbourne, Forbes and Riverstone in NSW, and Brisbane and Rockhampton in Queensland.   Angliss founded a food-trade school in Melbourne that still bears his name today.

William Lawrence Baillieu (1859-1936)

Left bankrupt after the 1890s depression, Baillieu diversified into many industries including media (Herald and Weekly Times with Theodore Fink), mining and pastoral ventures, netting large profits. Baillieu directed many companies and became known as “Australia’s money King”, running his empire with other members of his family and colleagues (W S Robinson, Lindesay Clark, etc) from Collins House in Melbourne.

John Darling Jnr (1852-1914)

Darling, known as Australia’s “Wheat King”, reinvested profits from his father’s (John Darling) then relatively small wheat and flour business in BHP and other companies. He became Chairman of BHP in 1907 and was responsible for redirecting BHP from mining to steel manufacturing.

In 1911 John Darling sent BHP General Manager G. D. Delprat to America to study the steel industry and engage experts to assist BHP in launching into steel production in Australia. In March 1915 the first BHP blast furnace was opened in Newcastle.

Sir James Burns (1846-1923)

In 1867 Burns travelled to the Gympie goldfields selling stores to miners and buying gold. By 1872 Burns had opened a store in Townsville. In addition he operated a small steamer between Normanton and Thursday Island with agencies for many other trading companies. A network of shipping services, stores and plantations extended throughout the islands.

Burns Philp and Co. was founded in Sydney in 1883 by James Burns and Robert Philp. By 1910 Burns, Philp and Co. was one of Australia’s leading companies. Burns remained Chairman and Managing Director until 1923.

Alfred Felton (1831-1904)

In 1853 migrated from England to Victoria where he it is said he made his money on the goldfields, before establishing himself as a merchant in Melbourne. By 1861, Felton was operating as a wholesale druggist in Swanston Street.

In 1867 Felton went into partnership with F.S. Grimwade to form Felton, Grimwade & Co. which became Australia’s largest drug house. During this time Felton built business interests in New Zealand and Western Australia that included the Melbourne Glass Bottle Works, the Adelaide Chemical Works Co. and Australian Salt Manufacturing Co. He bequest a large estate - half to Victorian charities and half to the National Gallery of Victoria which purchased more than 15,000 works of art making the collection one of the most significant in the world.

Sir Edward Knox (1819-1901)

Arrived from Denmark in 1839 and became General Manager of the Australasian Sugar Company (ASC).In 1855 he formed the Colonial Sugar Refinery (CSR), with capital of £150,000, to takeover ASC.

By 1908, seven years after Knox’s death, the CSR owned 13 mills and five refineries — a total productive capacity of 260,000 tons a year.

Honourable Mentions:

Frederick Grimwade, Rupert Henderson, W.S. Robinson, Hugh McKay, Walter Hall, Robert Barr Smith, Harry Howard Smith, Samuel Hordern.

No list could include any of the 1980 entrepreneurs such as Robert Holmes-a-Court, John Spalvins, Alan Bond, Christopher Skase or my friend, John Elliott — even though for a period of time they were all looked on as the doyens of Australian industry. Moreover, today there would be no BHP if it were not for John Elliott, Peter Scanlon, Brian Loton, Sir James Balderstone and John Baillieu.

In my paper, ‘Doing Business Globally — Marketing “Brand Melbourne’, I have outlined the contribution John Elliott made to Melbourne while Chairman of the Committee for Melbourne.

Final Opinion:

I doubt I would have been asked to compile this Crikey list of the top 20 Australian business people of all time if my father (who worked in the office next to Sir Keith’s for more than 13 years) had accepted Rupert’s offer in the 1950s, following Sir Keith’s death in 1952, to move to Adelaide to help him run the Adelaide News!

Compiled from knowledge passed to me from my father, Roy Morgan, and the following four publications:

1. The 60 Families Who Own Australia, by E.W. Campbell (1963);

2. Monash Biographical Dictionary of 20th Century Australia, edited by John Arnold and Deidre Morris (1994);

3. Keith Murdoch: Founder of a Media Empire, by R.M. Younger (2003); and

4. The All-Time Australian 200 Rich List from Samuel Terry ‘The Convict Rothschild’ to Kerry Packer; by William D. Rubinstein (2004)

To Whom It May Concern by Gary Morgan,

Since my list entitled Historic Look at Australia’s Top 20 Business People (including one American!) was published in the Crikey newsletter (June 27) and on the Crikey website, I have received numerous enquiries as to why some people were included in my list and not others.

Firstly, I should point out that while recent boom in Australian business is top of mind, innovation and wealth has only recently surpassed the growth and achievements seen in three previous booms:

• From the 1850s up until the 1890 depression;
• From 1900 until the 1930 depression (excluding WW1); and
• The 1950s and 60s (post WW2), specifically the wool/agriculture boom, as well as large mineral discoveries of iron ore, nickel, coal and oil.

Each of these periods had their own success stories — my point is that there are far more than 20 business people responsible for Australia’s success.

It was for this reason I chose not to include many of today’s business leaders who have been extremely successful as highly paid executives such as Roger Corbett of Woolworths or Allan Moss of the Macquarie Bank.

Nor did I include individuals who have in recent years created substantial wealth by building successful businesses. These include people such as Peter Scanlon and Chris Corrigan, Paul Little, Lindsay Fox, Dick Pratt, John Singleton, Kerry Stokes and Solomon Lew — to name just a few.

In addition to these successful business people there are many others — all of whom are well documented in the BRW Rich List and today’s edition of The Bulletin.

However there are others who could have just as easily been included in my list, such as the following mentioned to me over the last few days:

• Essington Lewis
• Alfred Nicholas
• Sir Sidney Kidman
• Michael Durack

There are many others who have been involved in other activities such as the arts, science, education, medicine, architecture, politics (there are a few like John Button and Henry Bolte) and, yes, the law (Michael Kirby).

Gary Morgan
June 26, 2006

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