From a kosher butcher shop to one of the country’s largest family offices

The Smorgon family is one of Australia’s great wealth building stories.

The family emigrated from Ukraine in 1927, opening a Kosher Butcher shop in Carlton soon after. Through the 1930s, the family expanded into wholesale meat and canning industries and, by the time the decade was up, were exporting meat and canned fruit goods to the United Kingdom.

Victor Smorgon AC and the family established Smorgon Consolidated Industries in 1942, and this is when things really started to take off. In the 50s, the family added paper and packaging businesses to their repertoire, while the 80s saw the addition of a glass and plastic packaging company.

But it was the Steel industry where the Smorgon family displayed its appetite and aptitude for disruption, with Smorgon Steel going on to become the country’s largest vertically integrated producer of steel and steel products.

In 1995, with a heavy heart, Victor and the family divested Smorgon Consolidated Industries. In its place came Victor Smorgon Group, which is today one of Australia's premier family offices. 

In today's episode of The Rules of Investing, Livewire's David Thornton sits down with Peter Edwards – the late Victor’s grandson and CEO of Victor Smorgon Group.  

We discuss:

• The Smorgon family’s flair for disruption
• The way a family office invests, and
• The multi strat fund that has recently opened its doors to outside money.