Billionaire Paul Lederer milking dairy profits after property sell down

Billionaire Western Sydney businessman Paul Lederer says his return to the food business, with a $160m of his own money, has re-energised him.

Chairman of Western Sydney Wanderers, Paul Lederer is passionate about football, but he says its dairy investments have put a spring back in his step.

Billionaire Paul Lederer jokes he is “getting younger and more energetic” thanks to his enthusiasm for making a success of his big return to the food manufacturing ­industry.

So devoted is he to Real Dairy Australia and Tuscany Cheese, which he put together after selling the final part of Primo Smallgoods in 2015, that he and his family are investing $160m in the business over the next few years.

“We’re very happy with the progress of the business,” Lederer tells The Australian. “We really believe in the industry. It has a really bright future and I’m getting younger and more energetic because of it. There is a huge future for manufacturing in Australia.

“Australia is a fantastic country and we should never sell ourselves short.

“There is a great perception overseas about what we produce [in food] and so there are big exporting opportunities, I think.”

Lederer is devoting more of his time to the food manufacturing industry, especially after he reportedly reaped about $300m from the recent sale of several regional and suburban shopping malls.

Real Dairy and Tuscany Cheese are held under TCAPL Pty Ltd, which has annual revenue of almost $450m, according to financial accounts lodged with the corporate regulator late last week.

The businesses make up what is one of the largest independently owned cheese processors in Australia, including a dairy facility in Wauchope, NSW. It also supplies milk and yoghurt powder and other dairy products, including wholesale distribution. Tuscany Cheese also has a distribution and exporting/importing business in Los Angeles and supplies to Asian markets. TCAPL recorded earnings before interest and tax, depreciation and amortisation of more than $12m last year, according to the company’s financial statements. Its balance sheet contains more than $250m of assets.

“Not bad for an old bloke,” Lederer says with a laugh, though he does admit the business has faced challenges – as many other manufacturers and other blue collar sectors have – in finding workers.

“It is true that it is more difficult than before to find staff,” he says. “This is especially true for finding labour for factories. It is a difficult situation at the moment.”

Lederer made the bulk of his fortune from Primo. He was the driving force behind the family smallgoods business, having started working in the business with his late uncle Andrew for only a few days but eventually staying 45 years.

Paul Lederer at Primo, in Sydney.

Lederer would go on to sell the business in two transactions: a majority sale to private equity firm Affinity Equity Partners in 2011 and then a $1.45bn sale to Brazilian giant JBS four years later.

Lederer has high hopes of the Real Dairy business one day growing as big as Primo, which shows how far it has come since Lederer famously decided to retire after the Primo sale in 2015.

By then, Lederer was involved in the A-League soccer competition as chairman of the Western Sydney Wanderers and thought he would see out his days as a passionate backer of the world game and his various other more passive investments.

But thoughts of retirement lasted about four days before his wife told him to go back to the office. His family investment arm Lederer Group then stitched together Real Dairy and Tuscany by making a series of acquisitions of businesses around Australia.

The group also owns Tomkin Australia, which supplies kitchenware and cutlery to the hospitality sector and has annual revenue of $50m in a normal year, unaffected by Covid.

Lederer Group also owned a string of neighbourhood shopping centres, usually anchored by a supermarket and other daily needs stores, until a reported sale of the portfolio for about $300m.

Earlier this year, Lederer Group helped establish a high school within one of its shopping centres, the independent ET Australian Secondary College at the Imperial Shopping Centre at Gosford on the NSW Central Coast.

Otherwise, Lederer is one of the key figures in the newly privatised A-League, now majority-owned by its team owners. Lederer is the league’s chairman and helped negotiate a new $200m broadcast deal with the Ten Network, and is also currently seeking private equity investment for the competition.

Originally published as Billionaire Paul Lederer milking dairy profits after property sell down