The Interview Australia

Our special guest on this episode is Rod Jones - Co-Founder of global education provider Navitas & Executive Chairman of Hoperidge Capital.

Unquestionably one of Perth's leading business figures for more than three decades, Rod's remarkable career has scaled the heights of the education industry, initially through the launch of IBT Education and the Perth Institute of Business Technology.

In the 1990's, the business was renamed Navitas and launched globally into the UK, Europe, Canada and the US, before listing on the ASX for $1 per share in 2004 and with a market capitalisation of $350m.

By day’s end, the share price had more than doubled to $2.40, valuing the business in excess of $800m.

Fast forward over the next decade and Rod led the business as Chief Executive Officer for some twenty-four years until 2018, navigating multiple economic and political cycles including constant changes in policy & direction both domestically and internationally.

In 2019, BGH Capital engineered one of the largest ever buyouts by an Australian private equity firm, acquiring Navitas and taking the company private in a $2.3bn enterprise deal, with shares ultimately valued at $5.825.

Utilising his expertise and financial resources, Rod now overseas his family office, Hoperidge Capital, a private investment vehicle with diversified holdings across the property, education, technology, medical innovation and energy sectors.

The Interview - Australia's flagship business series.

Host - Rob Langton

Produced & distributed exclusively by Ready Media Group.

Further Information:

https://www.navitas.com/

https://hoperidge.com.au/

https://readymedia.com.au/

Our guest on this episode is prolific Adelaide investor and developer, Anthony Lenzi, Managing Director of Thirteen Commercial.

Thirteen Commercial is a dynamic construction and development company, founded by Adelaide entrepreneur Anthony Lenzi, who has more than eighteen years experience developing small and large scale properties across Adelaide.

Headquartered in Flinders Park, Thirteen Commercial is spearheading several high profile industrial and commercial developments, throughout the Adelaide CBD and inner west.

Our special guest on this episode is globally respected business leader, Nicholas Moore AO.

In a remarkable corporate career that extends across more than three decades, Nicholas has established a formidable track record of success, predicated on an innate ability to recognise opportunity across investment markets well ahead of the curve.

Having been appointed in the depths of the Global Financial Crisis, Nicholas transformed the Macquarie Group business as Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director over the course of the ensuing decade (2008 - 2018) - de-risking the business model through strategic acquisition, global expansion into funds management & infrastructure investment, and an emphasis on annuity-style income.

In unquestionably one of the firm’s most defining decades across it’s storied fifty-year history, Nicholas ushered in a new era for Macquarie Group - building upon the firm’s unique risk management framework and celebrated bottom- up approach to the identification of opportunity and employee empowerment, he steered the organisation’s presence on a global stage, perhaps most distinctly illustrated via the lifting of the firm’s international income by 67 percent, a portfolio of assets under management that exceeded $550bn, a revenue base through which 70% of income was derived offshore and a 300 percent increase in shareholder returns - an extraordinary legacy of success.

Following a thirty-three year career at Macquarie Group, including close to eleven years as CEO, Nicholas stepped down in 2018 and began focusing on a number of projects and ventures that presented him with new opportunity to contribute his considerable skillset & expertise across both public and professional life.

In November 2022, Nicholas was appointed by the Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese, to the role of Special Envoy for South-East Asia to deepen economic engagement with Australia’s neighbours across the Asia-Pacific region.

Nicholas currently holds several significant chairmanships and directorships, including Chairman of Willow Technology Corporation, Screen Australia, The Centre for Independent Studies, The Smith Family and the National Catholic Education Commission.

He is also a member of the NSW Business School Advisory Council and an Honorary Doctorate in Business from the University of New South Wales.

Previously, he served as the Chairman of PCYC NSW for a period of over a decade (2002 - 2015) as well as the Sydney Opera House Trust (2015 - 2020).

Nicholas is a confidant and valued sounding board for Prime Ministers, Premiers, and business leaders across Australia, having been engaged to provide strategic advice across M&A, corporate finance, receivership and banking matters.

He is also the Chairman & Founder of the Moore Family Office, his private investment vehicle.

In a rare and exclusive profile, Nicholas discusses his incredible journey, from re-shaping a global financial powerhouse with over 15,000 employee’s across the World, to leading some of Australia’s most important philanthropic organisations - sharing the key lessons for success, and life, along the way.

Our special guest on this episode is Terry Snow AM - Executive Chairman of Capital Airport Group, Co-Founder & Chair of the Snow Foundation & Owner of Willinga Park.


Terry’s journey in both business & in life is undoubtedly one of Australia’s most remarkable & enduring - born in Canberra in 1943 to a family with a rich heritage and attachment to the ACT that dates back over two generations to his grandfather E.R Snow, the proprietor of the region’s first general store known as ‘Snows’, Terry has established a formidable career over the past sixty years that has changed the landscape for generations to come. 


Following graduation from Canberra Grammar School in 1961, Terry re-located to Melbourne and enrolled in an accountancy degree, later practising as a certified accountant in Canberra before finding the monotony of the profession limiting as compared with his love of dealing with people. 


In the 1970’s, a career change led him to real estate, a profession far more suited to his engaging personality and a field in which he excelled at over the course of a number of years.

Utilising the skills he’d learnt from this period of his life, he then turned his hand to property development, initially through the development of small industrial projects before later building larger office assets through Capital Property Trust (CPT) - a vehicle established alongside his brother George that followed in the footsteps of their father’s business, Capital Property Group. 


Throughout the course of the 1980’s and early 1990’s & under the stewardship of Terry & George, Capital Property Trust grew to become the largest non-government owner of property in the ACT, incorporating over eleven assets, underpinned predominantly by long-term leases from Government tenants.


The burgeoning success of CPT seeded the establishment of the Snow Foundation in 1991 with an initial $1m contribution, a philanthropic organisation that over the past three decades has assisted over four-hundred-and-fifty organisations through over $68m in disbursements - a division of the family’s diverse interests that remains one of its cornerstones. 


By 1996, Terry & George had grown Capital Property Trust into a business with over $530m of funds under management, laying the foundations for Mirvac to acquire a majority stake in a circa $70m deal, a transaction that enabled the pair to move away from the challenges that surround listed company ownership. 


Utilising the proceeds from the sale of CPT, Terry purchased Canberra Airport from the Federal Government in May of 1998 in a $65m transaction - a deal that has gone down in Australian corporate history as one of the most astute, with his private company Capital Airport Group transforming the site through more than $1bn of investment from sheep paddocks to an integrated accommodation, industrial, office, business park and aerotropolis precinct now valued in excess of $3.0bn. 


Alongside the remarkable growth of Canberra Airport over the past two-decades, Capital Property Group has undertaken a number of other precinct-defining projects including Constitution Place, Civic and the mixed-use Denman Prospect development to name a few - additionally, the group has also supported several early-stage firms through the strategic deployment of capital. 


In 2002 and spurned on by a long-held family association with the area, Terry began amassing landholdings in Bawley Point to create a 2300-acre equestrian parkland now known as Willinga Park - arguably the World’s finest equestrian precinct that also encompasses commercial farming, conferencing, training, and restaurant facilities. 


Our exclusive interview with Terry Snow AM explores his background, the evolution of Capital Property Group, his passion for philanthropy, the key drivers for success in both life and business and how both the Snow Foundation and Capital Airport Group are embarking on their next stage of growth.

An exclusive interview with Mark Couter - financial services specialist & Chief Executive Officer of diversified family office, Vitocco Enterprises.

Joining our series for a rare & exclusive interview are special guests, Johnny and Markus Kahlbetzer - members of one of Australia’s most remarkable and enduring business dynasty’s.

Our exclusive discussion delves into the family’s legacy, the major successes & challenges they’ve encountered along the journey, analysis of key deals and transactions across their respective businesses and the sectors & industries within which they see opportunities for investment in the years to come.

The Interview - Australia's Flagship Business Series.

Proudly produced, licensed & distributed exclusively via Ready Media Group.

Further information:

https://readymedia.com.au/

https://www.twynam.com/

https://bridgelane.com.au/

Our special guest on this episode is billionaire Arnold Vitocco - Founder & Managing Director of diversified family office Vitocco Enterprises.

Vitocco Enterprises is one of Australia’s most successful family-run private corporations, with a pedigree dating back some seventy years and a portfolio of assets that encompasses holdings across the property development, real estate investment, retail, agriculture and food and beverage sectors.

Our special guest is rich-lister Andrew Abercrombie, Chair & Founding Director of Humm Group and revered businessman, investor & philanthropist.

Born in Sydney in 1957, Andrew re-located to Melbourne at an early age and before long, his entrepreneurial qualities were on display, establishing five paper rounds as a teenager before turning his hand to trading motorbikes, cars and eventually residential real estate.

Following graduation from Scotch College, Andrew’s initial interest was in the field of medicine before a fortuitous change in circumstances coupled with his prior exposure to business led to him enrolling in an economics degree at LaTrobe University, graduating in 1976 before continuing his educational pursuits via a Master of Law degree at Monash University (1980).

Andrew then completed his articles at Garrick Grey & Co specialising in tax-planning and property trusts, ultimately establishing the foundations upon which he launched, alongside several others, his own legal firm in 1982 that focused on taxation, film-finance deals & the representation of clients across the entertainment industry including Cold Chisel and INXS.

Despite the early success the firm had over the course of the mid-1980’s, Andrew’s waning interest in the law culminated in a desire to explore other career options, and at age 30, he enrolled and was ultimately accepted into the ultra-competitive MBA course offered by IWD Switzerland, graduating in 1988.

After a brief stint in New York and in the shadows of a deteriorating global economic environment, Andrew returned to Australia and by 1990, identified opportunities to unlock value in companies that were either facing bankruptcy or were in liquidation.

One of those opportunities was a small leasing business that through a successful turnaround strategy implemented by Andrew during the course of the nineties and early two-thousands, grew to become listed on the stock exchange by 2006 and is now known as FlexiGroup.

Our exclusive feature interview with Andrew charts his journey across both his business and personal life, unpacking the key deals and lessons that have inspired his success.

Host - Rob Langton

Produced & distributed exclusively via - Ready Media Group

https://readymedia.com.au/

https://www.shophumm.com/humm-group/

#businessnews #businessinterview #meettheceo #ausbiz

Our special guest on this episode is Danny Gilbert AM - Co-Founder & Managing Partner of revered corporate law firm, Gilbert + Tobin.

In a rare and exclusive interview, Danny walks us through his extraordinary career, from practising law in regional New South Wales in the early part of his life, to moving to Sydney and launching his own firm alongside Tony Tobin in 1988.

From humble beginnings, Gilbert + Tobin is now one of Australia's most successful and prestigious legal firms, consistently ranked in the top three legal institutions in the Country with over 950 staff specialising in a diverse field of areas.

Proudly licensed, produced and distributed exclusively via Ready Media Group.

For further information, visit:

https://readymedia.com.au/

https://www.gtlaw.com.au/

Joining our series for his first ever in-depth interview is special guest - Jeff Chapman AM, Founder & Chairman of Bangarra Family Office & Bennelong Funds Management.

As one of Australia’s most successful business & philanthropic figures, Jeff’s remarkable career and influence extends across a diverse range of industries, including professional sports, media production, property development, funds management & global equities.

Born in the New South Wales town of Glen Innes in 1948, Jeff moved to Melbourne and attended Carey Grammar, wherein his sporting prowess was quickly recognised by his peers and culminated in him being appointed the school’s Football Captain.

Upon graduation, Jeff signed with the Hawthorn Football Club for one season before transferring to the Melbourne Football Club in 1966.

At the conclusion of his professional sporting career, Jeff transitioned into business, founding Sportsworld Media Group, an integrated production house that developed television programs, live broadcast events & magazines in 1991 before expanding the firm in Britain where it listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1998.

Following the sale of his stakes in the business upon it’s listing, and again two years later, Jeff launched his investment vehicle Bennelong Group in 2000 with a mandate of investing in businesses and operating real estate across England, the Middle East & Australia.

Over the ensuing two decades, Bennelong Group established itself as one of the Country’s most prolific investors, deploying capital across a range of sectors and industries including golf courses, commercial real estate projects and equities.

Launched in 2002 as a division of Bennelong Group, Jeff launched Bennelong Funds Management, a global investment company that partners with boutique asset managers across the World and that now has in excess of $15bn of assets under management across ten boutiques and six offices.

Jeff is also a highly respected philanthropist via the Bennelong Foundation in which his share of the profits from Bennelong Funds Management are channelled into a range of charitable causes in both Australia and the UK, with over fifty projects and seven-hundred grants distributed with an end value of in excess of $15m.

Through the Bangarra Family Office, Jeff manages his extensive investment interests including in Crown Golf, Bennelong Funds Management & his commercial property holdings.

Our exclusive discussion explores Jeff’s background, his professional football career, the rise of Sportsworld Media Group, his diversification into real estate and the significant rise and success of his global funds management house.

Proudly licensed, produced & distributed exclusively by Ready Media Group.

Host - Rob Langton

Further information;

https://readymedia.com.au/

https://bangarragroup.com/

https://www.bennelongfunds.com/