The Interview Australia

Joining our program in this exclusive feature profile is Tony Quinn - Founder of Quinn Family Office.

A visionary, pioneer & the man with the Midas touch, Tony’s remarkable business success is a journey across three Countries, wherein his innate corporate nous combined with a relentless work ethic has enabled him to scale to the top of a diverse range of industry sectors including fresh pet food, confectionary, motorsport & commercial real estate investment.

Though perhaps best known for his early success as the founder & driving force behind global market leader VIP Petfoods, the business he established from the ground up in 1994 before selling a majority stake to Quadrant Private Equity in a $410m transaction in 2015, Tony’s business achievements extend far beyond the VIP deal & incorporate a number of other triumphs; not least of which being the rapid turnaround & re-structuring of the infamous Darrell Lea Confectionary business, a company he acquired in 2012 for $25m before selling six years later in a $200m deal.

Alongside his well popularised feats with both VIP & Darrell Lea Confectionary,

The culmination of this financial success over a long period of time led to Tony establishing his own private investment vehicle Quinn Family Office (Quinnfinity Group) in 2015, a company through which he channels his considerable resources & expertise to invest in a broad spectrum of domestic and international businesses, commercial property assets throughout the World & venture opportunities.

In this rare & exclusive profile produced and distributed by Ready Media Group, Tony Quinn details his extraordinary life, from growing up in a caravan in Aberdeen, Scotland to becoming one of the World’s most successful self-made business owners & investors - this is Tony Quinn, in his own words, filmed in his adopted hometown on Queensland’s Gold Coast, Australia.

Founder & Host - Rob Langton.

Joining our program on this episode is Denis Wagner, Co-Founder & Non Executive Chairman of Wagners and Director of Wagner Corporation.

With a family association to Queensland’s Darling Downs region that predates an astonishing one-hundred-and-fifty years, Wagners & Wagner Corporation are unquestionably two of Australia’s largest and most successful businesses, with operations across manufacturing, construction, commercial property, aviation and mining services.

Tracing its roots back to 1896 when your great grandfather started business in this region, Wagners was officially established in 1989 as a partnership between Denis, his father Henry & siblings John and Neill Wagner.

The firm launched with a single concrete plant, added a second in 1996 and by 2010 was operating 19 concrete plants in fixed locations throughout Queensland in addition to expanding it’s construction materials operations both domestically and globally including in composite fibre technologies, bulk haulage, aggregates & earth-friendly concrete.

Over the course of the past three decades, Wagners has solidified its reputation with the firm being selected by blue-chip companies throughout Australia to deliver an enviable list of landmark projects - in 2012, Wagners undertook its own Nation-changing project with the construction of the circa $200m Wellcamp Airport, the first commercial airport to be built in Australia since the 1960’s.

In less than two years, construction of Toowoomba’s Wellcamp Airport was complete, with seventy-five scheduled flights a week including direct cargo flights into Asia - the precinct now also includes Wellcamp Business Park, a 500 hectare estate that incorporates aviation maintenance & training, manufacturing, factory outlets, transport logistics, warehousing & distribution and commodity processing.

Across both the listed entity, Wagners, and the private family business, Wagner Corporation, the Wagner Family now employ some 1,100 personnel with revenues exceeding $500m per annum.

In this rare and exclusive profile, Denis discusses the family’s long-held ties to Toowoomba, the launch and evolution of both Wagners and Wagner Corporation, the fundamental lessons & skills required for success that he’s learnt across his career & what the next chapter in the remarkable Wagner family story will look like over the years ahead.

Host - Rob Langton

Proudly produced by Ready Media Group.

Our special guest on this episode is prolific hospitality entrepreneur & commercial property investor, Graham Hardie - Chairman & Founder of Hardie Finance Corporation & principal of Entertainment Enterprises.

A stalwart of Perth’s business scene for over four decades, Graham established and led more than thirty venues across the City including renowned names such as Paramount, Arcadia, Underground, Bill’s, Empire Bar, Havana & Tiger Lil’s.

Graduating from Wesley College, Graham studied accounting, later attaining his Chartered Accountancy qualification and rising to become a Partner at a leading firm before launching his first hospitality venture, Knightsbridge’s Eagle One Nightclub in 1979. 


Whilst continuing to pursue his hospitality interests via Entertainment Enterprises, Graham also diversified into commercial property investment, acquiring & developing a number of significant assets across Northbridge, South Perth, Perth City and Lathlain. 

In addition to his commercial property & hospitality interests, Graham has also sat on the board of a number of public and private companies and currently serves as a Non Executive Director of Peel Mining.

In the first & only interview of his extensive career, Graham takes us through his background, his professional accounting career, his pivot into hospitality & property and the key lessons he’s learnt in both life & business along the journey.

Joining our program on this episode is prolific entrepreneur Jamie Pherous - Founder & Managing Director of Corporate Travel Management.

Launched in 1994 as a start-up with just two personnel, Corporate Travel Management (CTM) has since grown to become one of Australia’s largest home-grown business success stories.

As of May 2024, the firm boasts a market capitalisation in excess of $2.2bn, revenues exceeding $500m per year and some 3,000 staff stationed across the World including in Europe, North America & Asia.

In this exclusive interview, Jamie unpacks his background, the launch and evolution of CTM, the fundamentals required for delivering sustained success & the opportunities and challenges he’s encountered across a corporate career spanning more than three decades.

Proudly produced and distributed exclusively by Ready Media Group.

Hosted by Rob Langton.

Joining our series on this episode is special guest Charlie Bass, Founder of Bass Group & renowned businessman, entrepreneur, and philanthropist.

For more than five decades, Charlie has been an instrumental figure in corporate Australia, playing a leading role in the establishment and success of companies in a diverse range of sectors, including mining, resources development, technology & entrepreneurial research.

Born in Reading Pennsylvania, Charlie was raised in Florida to entrepreneurial parents, with his father a small business owner who frequently moved the family in pursuit of new opportunities including to Toronto, wherein Charlie later completed his secondary school education.

With a passion for the outdoors from a young age, Charlie enrolled in university studies in geology, mining and later mineral processing, completing undergraduate and post-graduate degrees, culminating in a Scholarship to complete a master’s degree at Queens University in Ontario.

Following two years working in the US with mining firm Amax Inc, Charlie re-located to Australia in 1978 and began working on Amax’s Mount Newman Iron Ore project, later establishing a software mining company known as MeTech in 1980.

Alongside fellow Western Australian business identity, Tony Poli, Charlie Co-Founded Eagle Mining Corporation in 1992, a business that grew throughout the course of the 90’s and fast became one of the most successful local exploration firms, before being acquired five years later in 1997 in a c. $250m deal.

Three years later in 2000, the pair combined again to establish Aquila Resources Limited, an ASX-listed business initially focused on gold exploration but that later transitioned into other resources including coal, manganese & iron ore.

In 2014, Aquila Resources was acquired in a c. $1.4bn deal between Baosteel-Aurizon, enabling Charlie to pursue a number of external interests and pursuits in the technology, internet & venture capital sectors.

Charlie is also the Founder and Managing Director of Eagle Mountain Mining (EM2), a copper focussed exploration and development company which he established in 2017 with the core objective of becoming a low emission producer to supply the rapidly growing green energy market.

In 2006, he launched the Bass Family Foundation, a charity vehicle purposely designed to provide education for disadvantaged children (particularly in remote area’s) as well as to provide resources & support to indigenous programs throughout Western Australia.

Charlie is also the Founder of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Research and Innovation (CERI), an organisation established in 2015 and which is primarily funded by the Bass Family Foundation to provide targeted programs, grants, events and resources to power the entrepreneurial pursuits and business ideas of future generations of Western Australians.

To-date, CERI has raised over $7.5m in funds to support more than 600 aspiring entrepreneurs.

Charlie was also named 2024 Senior Western Australian of the Year and invests privately through his family office, Bass Group.

Our exclusive interview with Charlie Bass explores his background, his transition from the US to Australia, the key pillars of his success, fundamentals he’s learnt from a lifetime in business and what he regards as his key achievements in a remarkable five-decade long career.

Host - Rob Langton | Ready Media Group

The Interview - Australia's most watched business series.

Joining our program on this episode in what is a unique & exclusive profile is Dan White - a 4th generation, executive member of the venerable White family real estate dynasty who currently serves as Managing Director of Ray White Group & Chairman of White & Partners.

Established in 1902, the Ray White Group is Australia’s largest & most successful real estate agency business, encompassing some twelve thousand plus members working across over a thousand agency offices throughout Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong & the Middle East.

Now it’s fourth generation of family leadership, Dan White was appointed Managing Director of the Ray White Group in 2015 wherein he leads the businesses diverse global operations, managing turnover that exceeds $35bn per annum, as well as serving as Founder & Chairman of the family’s private investment office, Ray White Capital, a business he established in 2001.



In this exclusive interview, Dan discusses the remarkable journey & success behind the Ray White Group, his personal career trajectory & learnings from his time at Arthur Anderson and Macquarie Bank, the opportunities and challenges involved in running a 12,000 person international business and the importance of legacy in maintaining the sustainability of the Ray White Group business for its future custodians.

Founder & Host - Rob Langton

https://readymedia.com.au/

https://www.raywhite.com/people/dan-white

Joining our program on this episode is prolific developer, agricultural investor & businessman Gerard O’Brien - Founder & Director of Silverleaf Investments, a privately held commercial real estate investment company.

For over three decades, Gerard has been an instrumental figure across Western Australia’s real estate & business communities, playing an integral role particularly throughout Fremantle wherein his award-winning retail, commercial and residential projects have significantly added too & boosted the appeal of the City.



Alongside his development / re-development projects in Fremantle, Gerard also has extensive commercial holdings throughout Perth & Hobart in addition to a number of private farming interests.

In this exclusive profile, Gerard walks us through his background, his approach to real estate investment & development, how the Cities of Fremantle, Perth and Hobart have evolved over recent decades & the types of opportunities he sees on the horizon for sophisticated investors.

Founder & Host - Rob Langton

Proudly produced & distributed exclusively via Ready Media Group.

https://readymedia.com.au/

Joining our series for an exclusive feature profile is Jack Hutchinson - Director & Board Member of Australia's oldest & most successful privately-owned construction firm, Hutchinson Builders.

Established in 1912, Hutchinson Builders is one of Australia's preeminent construction firms, having completed a remarkable 7,500 projects with an end value in excess of $35bn.

Jack is a qualified quantity surveyor and a licenced builder. He holds an MBA from the London Business School and a Bachelor of Property (QS & CM) from Bond University.

Before being appointed as a Director in 2022, Jack worked across various project and operational roles within Hutchies, as well as within other property, construction, and financial firms in both Australia and the United Kingdom.

Proudly produced by Ready Media Group.

https://readymedia.com.au/

https://www.hutchinsonbuilders.com.au/

Joining our series for an exclusive & in-depth profile on this episode is highly regarded businessman & entrepreneur, John Rothwell AO - Non-Executive Chair, Founding Director & the driving force behind Austal, the World’s largest aluminium shipbuilding company.

Having established Austal in Perth, Western Australia in 1988 with no more than five employees & $200,000 in cash, John has grown the company over the past three decades into a global maritime behemoth with over 4,300 personnel delivering over 350 world-class vessels as well as technological solutions for military, commercial and civilian applications - including for the United States Navy, United States Coast Guard, United States Marine Corps, Royal Australian Navy, Australian Customs, Government of Saudi Arabia & Euroferrys to name a few.

With a customer base that spreads across more than one-hundred operators in fifty-nine Countries, Austal has become one of the most successful businesses in Australian corporate history, with an order book in excess of $2bn per annum, operations spread across seven shipyards in five countries and a share register that includes blue-chip institutional & private companies including BlackRock, Tattarang Ventures, UniSuper, Vanguard & Pendal.

As Founding Director of Austal, John has led the business in various capacities throughout its thirty-six-year history including as Chief Executive Officer, Executive Chairman and since 2008, Non-Executive Chairman.

Prior to launching Austal, John founded a small structural engineering company which later became a leisure craft business known as Star Boats in 1972, a company that upended traditional boat-building practices by utilising aluminium rather than fibreglass for its lightweight hulls and which he grew for over a decade before selling to Christopher Skase backed Precision Marine (now Quintex Corporation) in 1984.

On a personal level, John migrated aged ten with his family from Holland in 1954 and completed three years of primary / secondary school before entering the workforce at fifteen - over the course of the following eight or so years, he held a number of roles working in steel fabrication, welding, transport & land clearing.

In a highly decorated career, John been the recipient of a number of awards including Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2004, Australian Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young in 2002, Western Australia Citizen of the Year in 1999.

In this exclusive interview, John walks us through his remarkable career, the evolution of Austal over the course of more than three decades, the opportunities & challenges in running a global manufacturing business from Australia and the fundamentals required to achieve sustained success in both business and life.

Produced, licensed & distributed exclusively via Ready Media Group.

Host - Rob Langton

Further information:

https://readymedia.com.au/

https://www.austal.com/

#ausbiz #businessnews #austal #australia #perth

Joining our series for a rare and exclusive interview on this episode are Mick Power AM & Scott Power - the father-son pair behind one of Australia’s largest and most successful privately owned urban development & construction firms, the BMD Group.

Established in 1979, the BMD Group has grown exponentially throughout the course of more than four decades - from humble beginnings in Brisbane to a leading National business that now boasts an international footprint, encompassing 2000 team members, revenues exceeding $2bn per annum and over fourteen offices positioned strategically across Australia.

Though it’s early foundations concentrated largely around providing engineering services on a smaller-scale in the residential subdivision space, the BMD Group has evolved and expanded rapidly, with the firm now incorporating five distinct business divisions, including BMD Constructions, BMD Urban, Empower Engineers & Project Managers, JMac Constructions and Urbex - the sum total of which combine to provide their public, institutional and private clients a full-service offering across the property development, engineering design, transport infrastructure, civil construction and project management sectors.

A family business at its core, BMD was established five decades ago as a partnership between Mick Power, his wife Denise, his brother in law Bevin and sister Beverly, and whilst Mick & Denise acquired the remaining shares in the business from Bevin and Beverly twelve-months after launching, the firm’s unwavering commitment to its people remains evident through its emphasis on ‘family’ as a fundamental value within its operating model.

Mick Power AM has served as the company’s Founder & Group Board Chairman for more than forty years - he commenced his career aged 19 with Leighton Contractors in 1969 as their first cadet, working on major infrastructure and mining projects as Manager of Central Queensland before steadily rising through the firm to eventually become the Area Manager of the Gold Coast region.

Following a decade with Leighton and combined with the firm’s move away from smaller scale (sub-$200k) contracts, Mick saw an opportunity to launch his own business, BMD, and utilising a $12,000 superannuation payment from Leighton, began undertaking lower-priced residential subdivision work with Hooker Rex (now known as Fraser Property Group), completing infrastructure and civil works across a number of residential subdivision projects.

In his current role as Group Board Chairman, Mick provides high-level oversight & guidance to the Board of Directors and across the BMD business whilst also having pursued a number of other interests, including 27 years as a Board Member of the South Bank Corporation, Board Member of the Brisbane Lions Football Club, Honorary Ambassador to the City of Brisbane, accreditations by Engineers Australia, Surf Life Saving Foundation Vice Patron, BMD Northcliffe Surf Life Saving Club Patron, Wynnum Golf Club Patron, Honorary Lifetime PGA Membership and Wynnum Manly Leagues Club Patron.

Following in his father’s footsteps, Scott Power currently serves as the BMD’s Group Chief Executive Officer, a role he has held since November 2020 following a career of nearly three decades with the

company.

Scott is a graduate of the Queensland University of Technology, having completed a Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng., Hons.) as well as a graduate of MIT’s Sloan School of Management, having completed a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree.

In addition to leading BMD through its next phase of growth, Scott is a Board Member of Infrastructure Partnerships Australia as well as a Board Member of Australian Owned Contractors.

Proudly produced by Ready Media Group.