The House View
Our family established Victor Smorgon Group in 1995 following the divestment of Smorgon Consolidated Industries. Formation of Victor Smorgon Group was based on our aspiration to grow and develop diversified activity needed to build generational wealth and look after the family for years to come. Whilst this mandate has remained unchanged, we have needed to adapt, expand and professionalise as both markets and our family have evolved.
These factors have had a significant impact on both the shape of Victor Smorgon Group and our family.
We’ve achieved steady growth over the last 30 years and the change we’ve seen in markets and in cycles has added depth to our understanding. Our appreciation of the opportunity presented by different market cycles means we are investment agnostic, we pursue investments which reflect the best risk and return prospects for the time.
Our approach is based on an operator’s mindset - we invest in companies and opportunities that:
Have attractive operating margins and demonstrate pricing power
Produce free cash flow and return capital to shareholders
Occupy sectors of the economy that are due to benefit from structural trends
Are well led by experienced and aligned management teams
Can be acquired at a reasonable price.
The Group currently operates across a number of sectors, including commodities, consumer discretionary, property and global equities.
As a business, I’m proud of the significant advances we’ve made in recent times with our systems and processes across governance, management, reporting, communications & technology.
Over the last three years, our family office has entered into in a number of partnerships that we consider critical from a strategic point of view. We believe we now have a unique offering, covering funds management, corporate advisory, corporate debt, family office/business advisory, accounting, taxation and digital assets.
Victor Smorgon Group is now an ecosystem of partnerships – all of which we believe can thrive in a family office environment, creating value and opportunity for both our family and investors into the future.
I welcome you to our half-yearly “House View”. Our intent is to share key elements in our thinking that inform our decisions, whether it be for our investments, family or business operations - things we are thinking about, planning for or exploring when we develop our approach to various markets over the next 6 months.
Peter Edwards
Executive Chair
The world needs more copper than it can produce
Demand for copper continues to grow, while bringing new supply to market is becoming increasingly difficult. We look at the structural forces behind this imbalance and why copper remains an important long-term investment theme.
The real issue in most boards? Clarity, not governance.
Across family enterprises and family offices, a consistent pattern emerges: governance challenges rarely start in the boardroom. They begin with a lack of clarity at the ownership level, which then flows through to the board and into management.
M&A insights for family offices
The Australian mid-market continues to show strong momentum, with family business owners, private capital investors, and strategic buyers actively pursuing acquisitions and partnerships.
MBO - Management’s big opportunity?
Tens of thousands of Australian companies are expected to change hands over the coming decade and the most logical buyer cohort is management via an MBO, a financial strategy where a company is acquired by management using a combination of debt and equity.