Success and More Interesting Stuff

Inside Barry Irvin's fight for Bega and his life

Bega Cheese turned 125 this year. It started as the Bega Co-operative Creamery Company in 1999, and for over a century, things were pretty quiet. That all changed in 2000 when a young dairy farmer, Barry Irvin, took the reins as chairman. From then on, it’s been a whirlwind of growth and transformation.

In 2011, Irvin took Bega to the Australian stock market, and under his leadership, the company made several key acquisitions. Today, Bega isn’t just a dairy business. It’s a major player in Australian food, owning brands like Vegemite, Peanut Butter, Dare Milk, and Yo Plait. Now, Bega has a market cap of around $1.6 billion.

But Barry Irvin’s story is about more than business success. He’s faced significant personal challenges too. His son, Matthew, was born with profound autism. Irvin became a key figure in Giant Steps, a nonprofit supporting children with autism. In 2019, Irvin faced his own health battle, being diagnosed with bowel cancer. Despite a tough fight, he beat the disease and returned to lead Bega once again.

In this episode of the Success and More Interesting Stuff podcast, I chat with Barry Irvin about his journey, both personal and professional. It’s a story of resilience, leadership, and the determination to succeed.

Former Wallaby David Lyons' game-changing investments in Ag

David Lyons has travelled around the world chasing a rugby ball. From the time he started to take the game seriously as a 15-year-old he was earmarked for success. Twice he toured Europe with the Australian schoolboys, opening his eyes to a world significantly larger than the one he experienced growing up in the NSW country town of Molong.

Lyons played 46 tests for the Wallabies over 8 years including two World Cups and a British Lions tour. At just 28 years he picked up his ball and moved to Wales for a few seasons before settling in France for a longer stint.

It was in Europe that he started to plan for his future. He studied at Oxford and in Monaco. This set him up for a career in finance.

Heading back to Australia, Lyons picked up a role at KPMG before eventually deciding to pitch his own tent. In 2021 he joined with some other like-minded professionals and launched AAG Partners. The group specialises in the agriculture sector.

Acutely aware from his farming days in Molong of the financial volatility in the agricultural industry, he has deliberately sought out ways to deliver higher returns with less risk.

In this podcast, Lyons talks about the journey from rural NSW to representing Australia at an elite level on the global stage. He also shares his passion for continuous learning and how this is helping to uncover new opportunities through his agriculture investment firm AAG Partners.

• 0:00 - Introduction
• 1:30 - Growing up in Molong
• 7:00 - A passion for agriculture and entrepreneurship
• 9:15 - Building a career in Rugby
• 16:02 - What it takes to be truly great in any field
• 21:52 - Going global and moving to Europe
• 26:13 - Continuous learning and development
• 28:29 - Returning to Australia
• 29:30 - Starting AAG Partners
• 34:45 - A formula for higher returns for less risk in agriculture
• 39:45 - A revolution in cotton farming

The former rugby league player who now runs a $1.5 billion business

Sometimes, misfortune can lead to opportunity. 

Wes Maas was an aspiring young rugby league player trying to establish himself in the NRL. The kid from Dubbo had boundless energy and in his spare time, he worked in an equipment hire business. A football injury not only meant he was out of action on the field, but it also took him out of the hire yard and into head office. It was here that his world opened up. 

The family-run business was successful. It concentrated heavily on return on total assets. Wes was quick to catch on. It wasn't long before he threw in his NRL dream and headed back to Dubbo for a fresh start. 

Still in his early 20s, Wes spent his savings on a bobcat and borrowed twice that amount to buy a tipper. Suddenly, he was running his own business. Never happy to rest on his laurels, Wes expanded his fleet of equipment. He was keen to diversify and soon started an equipment hire business, leaning on his knowledge from his time in Sydney. 

While Dubbo may seem to some to be a remote place to build an empire, Wes saw its potential. He was able to buy a quarry under the nose of an international giant. Then, his world expanded. 

Property development and civil works followed in 2020. Wes looked to float the business on the share market, in the hope that a capital raise would help it grow even further. Maas Group (ASX: MGH) listed and started to expand. 

Today, this former rugby league player runs a $1.5 billion business and he has amassed a personal fortune in the hundreds of millions of dollars. 

The group has assets throughout regional New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland, with Dubbo right in the middle. Still, only in his 40s, Wes' journey has a long way to go. 

In this podcast, Wes takes investors through his early days as an aspiring rugby league player and the early days of running his own business - back when his family referred to him as "Neville No-Trade". 

He also shares some of the plans the Maas Group team has for the future, and some of the greatest moments in the journey so far. 

https://www.livewiremarkets.com/wires/the-former-rugby-league-player-who-now-runs-a-1-5-billion-business

 

Timecodes: 

• 0:00 - Intro 
• 1:54 - Early rugby days 
• 4:18 - Major lessons Wes took away from this time 
• 5:12 - Overcoming injury and why everything happens for a reason
• 7:17 - Learning the equipment hire game on the job 
• 9:49 - Moving home to Dubbo
• 11:12 - Starting his own business
• 17:02 - Building an achievable long-term business plan 
• 20:27 - Scaling the business 
• 24:09 - Expanding into building materials 
• 29:12 - Listing on the ASX and COVID experience
• 34:32 - Rising rate environment and impact on Maas Group
• 36:34 - Importance of "steady" not "rapid" growth 
• 38:20 - Growth plans for the future 
• 39:16 - What happens when an acquisition doesn't work
• 40:12 - Importance of good people 
• 41:17 - Areas that are exciting over the next five years 
• 43:46 - How Wes defines success 

No shortcuts! How Ian Macoun built a $100 billion funds management behemoth

It is rare for a person to spend the first half of their working life in the public service and then pivot to build a multi-billion dollar financial business. Making the story even more remarkable is that this person grew up in regional Queensland - where financial products are hardly the main course of the local economy. 

Ian Macoun, the Managing Director and Founder of Pinnacle Investment Management (ASX: PNI) was born in Rockhampton - a city best known for its cattle production. He left town to work for the Queensland Treasury before being poached as a 33-year-old to run the newly constructed Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC). 

It was here that he was introduced to the world of investing. With QIC up and running, Macoun headed to Sydney, joining the private sector. A stint at Westpac opened his eyes to the opportunity in funds management and in 2000, he struck out with Mike Crivelli forming Perennial Funds Management.

It wasn't long though, and Macoun was thinking of an alternative funds management model. Taking minority ownerships in multiple managers, providing the onerous back office functions and accessing the key ingredient for any fund manager - funds. 

He discovered this opportunity at stockbroker Wilsons Advisory. Macoun teamed up with Steve Wilson to change his fledgling Hyperion Funds Management arm into a multi-manager model. This was the birth of Pinnacle Investment Management. 

Today, Pinnacle has been spun out of Wilson's and has 16 affiliates with a staggering $110 billion of total funds under management. It is growing rapidly and Macoun believes $200 billion is not out of the question. 

In this episode of Sucess and More Interesting Stuff, Macoun opens up about his early years and upbringing, shares how he came up with the Pinnacle model and outlines his plans for the future. 

Note: For disclosure purposes, the funds associated with Matthew Kidman own shares in Pinnacle Investment Management. 

https://www.livewiremarkets.com/wires/no-shortcuts-how-ian-macoun-built-a-100-billion-funds-management-behemoth/

Hungry for profit, patient for growth: Bellroy’s motto for sustainable growth

Traditionally, on the show, we talk to people involved in some shape or form with the share market. Today, we are excitedly going off-piste and delving into the unlisted world in one of Australia's outstanding success stories. 

In 2008, Lina Calabria and two partners decided to start nine separate businesses as consultants. They had plenty of bright ideas and thought that creating a portfolio of companies, while unorthodox, was a low-risk path to success.

Within a few years, they selected Bellroy, an accessories business that specialises in male wallets, as the pick of the bunch. From humble beginnings, Bellroy, named after combining Bell's Beach and Fitzroy, has grown into a global brand with more than $130 million in sales. 

Bellroy sells in dozens of countries and has created its own category called Carry. In other words, they design products you carry around, such as slim wallets, backpacks, work bags, duffel bags, totes, passport holders, and phone cases. It's niche but nicely profitable. 

Today, Calabria sees a great opportunity to expand Bellroy in both products and countries, and she believes doubling and possibly tripling the business is a realistic goal.

Click on the player below to hear how Calabria and the team at Bellroy created their own category and navigated the trails of COVID-19 to build a business making a name on the global stage.

Meet the small company prospector who unearthed gems like Afterpay and Bellamy’s

Stockbroking is a dangerous game. Investors depend on your advice, but the smallest slip-up can see the relationship turn nasty. As a result, most brokers tend to be as conservative as possible; not Hugh Robertson. 

Robertson a 40-year veteran of the stockbroking scene in Melbourne, thrives at the risk end of the curve, specialising in micro and small cap stocks. He works like a gold prospector out in the field with his metal detector looking for the next big discovery.

His list of wins includes Monadelphous (ASX: MND), Service Stream (ASX: SSM), Bellamy’s (ASX: BAL), Hub24 (ASX: HUB), Afterpay and PSC Insurance (ASX: PSIN). He found most of those companies well before they'd been researched by the investment community and, in some cases, even before they listed on the share market.

Robertson has a unique style. He does not rely on numbers to make his decisions. To make matters harder, he has always found reading difficult. Instead, following his natural instincts, he garners information by getting to know people.

His conversations are endless and his intuition for what might work is uncanny. Most investors would've run into Robertson on Collins Street, with a cigarette in one hand and his mobile phone in the other, on the scent of the next big thing.

That doesn't mean he gets all his stock calls right – far from it. Like anyone dealing in small companies, there are always disappointments. His troubled children include Envirosuite (ASX: EVS) and Maggie Beer (ASX: MBH), but the ledger sits firmly in the positive.

Interestingly, Robertson is comfortable sitting on the boards of the companies he backs. Some people in the investment community would describe this as unorthodox, but Robertson likes to make sure he knows the people running the companies he's recommending to his clients. And if the company heads down the wrong path, he's prepared to make the changes required to right the ship.

His other great love is the land. Like most Collins Street farmers, it has been a rocky road. Early setbacks, though, have subsequently led to some prize properties in rural Victoria and probably the best garden in the state.

In this episode of Success and More Interesting Stuff, I speak with Hugh about his path to stockbroking, his passion for prospecting and some of the incredible stories he has brought to the market. Hugh also shares a few of the emerging companies catching his eye right now.

How WiseTech's Richard White built a 26-bagger growth darling

Richard White always wanted to be a rockstar. He was still young when it dawned upon him that it might be more profitable and realistic to become a tech titan instead. 

Sounds simple enough, but the journey has taken many twists and turns. Over 40 odd years, White thought life was perfect, hanging out in a rock band and rubbing shoulders with the likes of ACDC and The Angels. Unfortunately, he was going broke. 

A problem solver, he pivoted and thought repairing guitars for established rock stars was a way to make an interesting living. The business was a resounding success, but it wasn't perfect. It couldn't be scaled. And another salient lesson was learned. 

Nexy, a lighting business was built and sold, and then a stint in the computer hardware distribution game rounded out some much-needed business skills. 

In between ventures, White took on some consultancy work. Just by chance, some of his clients were in the freight forwarding game and White, ever alert, identified things could be done a lot better. 

So he got to work again and started writing software. Even though he had little practical training, he had twigged the entire freight forwarding industry needed a hand, and he took his products and started selling them more broadly. It is rare that one individual can write the software and then sell it. That was way back in the late 1980s. 

During the 1990s, his business became the platform for many major transport companies. Not satisfied, White decided to disrupt his own business. In the early 2000s, he rebuilt his product suite before forging into North America and Europe with a name changed to WiseTech. 

The company followed its customers and spread its tentacles around the globe. In 2016, White decided to list on the ASX. He thought publicly traded shares would give him the currency he needed to buy the missing bits to cement a global empire. 

And he was right. Close to 50 acquisitions later, WiseTech owns the space. The share price has risen a staggering 26 times from $3.35 to $90. Today WiseTech is valued at $30 billion and is the largest software company listed on the ASX. 

According to White, the music is still playing. And WiseTech has a few hit songs to knock out yet. 

Note: This podcast was recorded on Wednesday 24 April 2024. 

Timecodes: 

• 0:00 - Intro 
• 2:29 - Richard's favourite musicians 
• 4:27 - Richard's on his enduring love for music 
• 6:46 - The influence of Richard's upbringing on his career
• 11:17 - The importance of being able to put ideas into practice 
• 13:58 - How Richard taught himself how to build hardware 
• 16:01 - On sales (and lessons learnt from his previous businesses)
• 17:18 - Why cash is king 
• 19:36 - The importance of persistence 
• 21:59 - How Richard identified a problem he could solve in freight forwarding
• 26:14 - Why good sales is actually marketing 
• 27:42 - The beginnings of WiseTech
• 30:38 - On the importance of education and how it helped grow WiseTech
• 32:46 - Taking WiseTech global
• 34:35 - External investment in the company and an IPO
• 40:16 - On signing DHL pre-IPO
• 41:37 - Dealing with volatility: commentary on the 2019 short attack and early COVID-19 struggles 
• 44:45 - WiseTech has acquired 49 companies since listing 
• 45:48 - Why people are a business's most important intellectual property
• 49:13 - Educating the next generation (and why "STEM" isn't working)
• 52:08 - The DNA of WiseTech Global today...
• 53:09 - ... And what could disrupt that
• 55:38 - Richard on his succession/retirement and legacy 

 

Alex Vynokur bet his house on ETFs now his firm is challenging the global behemoths of index investing

A revolution has taken place in share investing since the turn of the century. American firms have led the charge with the likes of Vanguard and Blackrock taking passive investing around the globe. 

Disenchantment with active fund managers has seen funds flow into the passive sector, accelerated by the emergence of exchange traded funds, or simply ETF’s.

In Australia, the revolution arrived late. Active managers held sway for many years before eventually the dam wall broke. The American behemoths came hard, but they didn’t have it their own way. 

Aussie startup Betashares grew out of the GFC and took up the fight. Cobbled together by Alex Vynokur, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, it wasn’t long before Betashares captured the attention of market participants around the country.

15 years on and Betashares has more than 90 ETF’s, $37 billion assets under management and 150 employees. It is the second largest ETF provider in the Aussie market and in 2023 managed to rank number one for inflows with 37 per cent market share.

As a 16-year-old Vynokur and his family left the Ukraine as the walls of the former Soviet Union came crumbling down. Alex had no English and had to start from scratch. He caught on quickly and in a few short years was studying Law at UNSW. 

A brief stint working as a lawyer was followed by a job at finance house Pengana with Malcolm Turnbull and Russell Pillemer. He deduced that not all active managers were able to beat the market. Around the same time, he latched onto the emergence of ETFs. Mortgaging his house and taking time for a fact-finding tour of the US saw him kick off Betashares.

In this episode of Success and More Interesting Stuff, Alex discusses his view on the future of both passive and active investment styles, the incredible growth of Betashares and his passion for making an impact on war-stricken Ukraine.

Australia has 12 million empty bedrooms... So could this company crack the housing crisis code?

Affordable housing seems to be an elusive goal in Australia. However, Lifestyle Communities (ASX: LIC), which is celebrating its 21st birthday in 2024, might have just cracked the code. 

 

The company’s land rent model is spreading across Victoria at an ever-increasing rate. To date, more than 30 villages within driving distance of Melbourne have been built or are in the planning stage. In total, more than 5,700 homeowners have been accommodated with many more to come.

Lifestyle Communities started life modestly. At the helm was property veteran James Kelly ably assisted by his partners Bruce Carter and Dael Perlov. The company debuted on the ASX four years later, quietly backdooring into a listed cash box. Over the next 17 years, only the insiders and some unsuspecting investors have enjoyed the stunning 2,500% return. Today the company has a market value of $1.7 billion.

Like most successful businesses the original idea was a simple one. Make housing affordable for empty nesters in their late 50s and early 60s. Sell your home and move into a brand-new village nearby. Buy the home and rent the land, having enough capital left over to live a comfortable life.

"In Australia, every night, we have 12 million empty bedrooms, which speaks volumes to this empty nester challenge that Australia faces," Kelly says.

"We should have a 'last home buyers' grant. We know that first-home buyers' grants typically go into the builder's pocket when the government hands those out when there's a downturn in housing. But a 'last home' buyers grant would actually encourage people to get out of their homes, downsize and free up housing stock for the next generation." 

Today, Kelly, at 64 years old, is a prime candidate to be a Lifestyle Communities customer. I get the feeling though that he is still happy to keep the accelerator to the floor. 

I first met James not long after the company listed on the ASX in 2006. He has always been an engaging, upbeat individual, defying the typecast property developer image. In this podcast, he takes investors through the journey, and shares what keeps him inspired after 21 years in the business. 

Note: This episode was recorded on Wednesday 28 February 2024. 

 

Timecodes: 

0:00 - Intro 

2:33 - From an idea in a cafe to a $1.8 billion company - coming up with the Lifestyle Communities concept 

5:36 - The transformation of the retirement industry 

7:17 - Early financing struggles and selling the concept 

11:28 - The intrinsic desire to be part of a community 

13:03 - James Kelly's upbringing, family life and first foray into property 

16:03 - The lasting impact and legacy of property investment and development 

17:14 - The key to successful property development 

19:04 - Experiences that created the leader James Kelly is today 

25:52 - The importance of pricing risk as a busy owner 

29:22 - The Lifestyle Communities model and its first development 

34:09 - Backdoor listing on the ASX

37:18 - Lifestyle's most recent capital raise and plans for the future

40:38 - The transformation of Lifestyle's share register 

41:56 - The opportunity in Generation X  

45:56 - Why leaders/managers should focus on being kind

47:46 - How to solve Australia's housing crisis  

50:32 - Why James Kelly won't be retiring any time soon 

 

 

Kerr Neilson: This opportunity will drive the next decade of growth

Over the last four years, Success and More Interesting Stuff has been privileged to host some of the legends of the Australian equity market. Arguably though no one has had more of an impact on the industry than Kerr Neilson.

 

Originally from South Africa, Neilson landed on Australian shores in 1983 where he joined the ranks of Bankers Trust. BT was on the rise and Neilson stood out among the pack. After just two years, he was placed in charge of the retail business. Under his leadership, it became the growth engine of the firm managing money around the globe.

 

BT’s mercurial handling of the 1987 crash saw Neilson’s retail arm of the company hit its stride, garnering billions of dollars to manage. Stellar performance and a growing reputation as a canny operator saw Neilson build a name for himself. 

 

In 1993, Neilson decided to go it alone forming Platinum Asset Management. As one BT operative described on the day of his departure, “the trading room floor at BT felt like it was hosting a funeral.”

 

Counting George Soros’ Quantum Fund among its original investors, Platinum got off to a flying start. Pitching itself as a global investor, the company powered through the next decade reaching $26 billion of funds under management. In 2007, Neilson and his team decided to float Platinum. It was good timing, with the market nearing a peak before the Global Financial Crisis.

 

Neilson ran Platinum for another decade before handing the reins to Andrew Clifford. In 2022, he decided to depart the Platinum board, ready for the next part of his journey.

 

In this episode of Success and More Interesting Stuff, Neilson shares some of the major moments that shaped his career trajectory, some of his biggest wins during this time, as well as why his inventive ancestors taught him the "importance of being in the game - whatever the new game is" - and right now, he believes that is AI. 

 

He also addresses some of the major changes that he hopes are on the horizon for Platinum investors - and shares why he still believes he has a responsibility to shareholders even after all this time. 

 

Note: This interview was recorded on Thursday 8 February 2024.