‘Dan? Congratulations to him on his achievements, it’s phenomenal what he has done’
David Fox, son of tracking magnate Lindsay, has no qualms about his close friendship with Victorian Premier Dan Andrews, who he says has achieved great things.
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The inner machinations of rich dynasties fascinated us long before Logan Roy burst onto our screens dropping f-bomb after f-bomb in the hugely popular Succession series.
How Roy ruled over his family was must-watch viewing and raised the question, how close to real life is it?
Page 13 went inside the Fox family lair this week and the answer is pretty darn close.
Trucking magnate Lindsay Fox, who is also quite partial to the f-bomb, together with his sons David, Andrew and Peter, operate the multi-billion dollar Linfox empire.
But at its heart are strict family values.
Blood is certainly thicker than water. They speak every day, with the patriarch always insisting family above everything else.
Son David Fox has touched down to talk up “his baby”, also known as Avalon Airport and the arm of the empire he controls. Woven throughout his conversation is the family’s “TIL theory.”
Trust, Integrity, Loyalty is what Lindsay drummed into them all from the early days around the kitchen table. He says it’s the backbone of their business.
Some years back Fox gave his three sons a cube, each with a letter on it. Andrew had F, Peter O and David X, “Put the three of us together and we create Lindsay,” David Fox says. “We work as a team.”
“We love loyalty. We don’t look at customers, we look at partnerships,” Fox says looking up to the skies to see if Bonza, the first new airline carrier to launch in Australia in 16 years, is about to touch down on its debut journey from the Sunshine Coast into Victoria.
“If we are going to work with you, you need to win and we need to win and everyone else needs to be a winner out of it,” he says about the Linfox business.
“But if you want to abandon ship, well that’s not the values that we have within our family. You are either with us or against us.
“You have to trust someone or you don’t trust them at all. If you’ve got no integrity then you don’t want to be a part of them.
“And loyalty, give me 100 per cent loyalty. They are the business foundations. That’s what we truly believe in and the old man instilled that in us ever since we were born.”
The close-knit clan, think more than 25 grandchildren, spouses and offspring, regularly holiday together.
The birthday milestones garner the headlines, from Fox’s lavish “conception party” around Europe, or more recently the US and Canada on his superyachts.
There was David’s 50th in Hawaii with friends like Lord Mayor Sally Capp and Carlton president Luke Sayers donning flowered shirts and leis for the celebrations.
But it is the holidays that don’t get written about, like the recent family jaunt to Antarctica, which bring the Fox values home.
It was the one continent 85-year-old Lindsay had never been, so the patriarch gathered together his sons and grandsons.
And to test if they were made of the right stuff, Lindsay had one rule. The scions had to jump into the freezing subzero water.
As head of the family, Lindsay was first in and led the way with a procession of oldest to youngest Foxes following.
This week the Foxes were reaching for the skies, with Bonza and Avalon.
David Fox wants to turn his baby into an international hub. He says Covid has pivoted Avalon to a long-term goal with industrial, retail, entertainment and manufacturing opportunities.
“We’ve got over $400 million worth of capital being allocated to construction. We’ve created in the last 12 months a minimum of 2000 jobs on this particular site with Australia Post, Cotton On, Petstock and Hanwha.
“We’ve got $1.3 to $1.7 billion worth of opportunities knocking on our door within the next 24 months with at least 20,000 people potentially working on site. That’s substantial,” he says.
Fox says he is working closely with state and federal governments to push for a rail station at Avalon.
This is not a long-term vision but a short-term one he says which will open up Victoria as an international destination hub.
“The plans are there. We are prepared to put our money in, but we are hoping for some support from the state and federal governments,” he says.
“The state government put in $5 billion for Tullamarine. Give me 1 per cent. Give me $50 million so we can actually create another impact destination.
“Our object is to create and we totally believe we are going to end up with between 15 to 30 per cent of the Victorian aviation market.”
Headlines at the other newspaper have been shrieking about the Foxes close ties with the Andrews government with Lindsay described as Dan’s “go-to billionaire.”
Earlier this year, Andrews and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese attended the billionaire family’s beachside compound at Sorrento for a five-hour barbecue and what Albo later described as a “private meeting.”
David Fox says he has friends in many places, high and low. He shrugs and has no qualms about his relationship with his good mate Dan.
“It’s yesterday’s news,” he says. “The tall poppy syndrome lives well here in Australia. The reality is my old man is still a truck driver.
“Dan? Congratulations to him on his achievements, it’s phenomenal what he has done. Who is to say we can and can’t have friends.
“People who don’t know us can’t judge us. If they know us they have the right to make their judgment.”
Words straight from Logan Roy, but without the f-word.
The Foxes just keep on trucking.
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