Salvatore “Sam” Tarascio shares journey to success

From selling pantyhose to founding one of Australia’s biggest private companies, Salvatore “Sam” Tarascio’s journey to success has been far from simple.

Sam Tarascio and son Sam Jr have built Salta Properties into one of the biggest private companies in Australia. Picture: Jason Edwards

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The journey to success of Salvatore “Sam” Tarascio, billionaire and founder of Salta Properties, was far from simple.

It was an arduous path marked in its early days by a perilous six-week journey by boat, a new home, new language and faces that did not look like his.

It meant dropping out of school by 16, selling pantyhose (to his mother’s dismay), buying swampland in Williamstown and taking every opportunity that came his way.

Half a century later, the 80-year-old sits at a desk high above the Paris end of Collins St with a view of his city-shaping projects and a thriving family business.

A new migrant arriving in Melbourne now and hoping to follow in Mr Tarascio’s footsteps would face deeply entrenched roadblocks.

“It would be very, very difficult,” the property magnate says.

“The way things work today are quite different to the way they were before.”

Property billionaires Sam and Christine Tarascio at their Pt Leo camp, Chabad. Picture: Ian Currie

Like many Victorian business owners, Mr Tarascio and his son Sam Tarascio Jr – who was tapped by his father to help run the family business almost 20 years ago – are forced to contend with increased taxes, red tape and an unproductive labour force under a union stranglehold.

Mr Tarascio was largely free of these obstacles during his extraordinary rise.

In an exclusive sit-down interview with the Saturday Herald Sun to celebrate receiving the Property Council of Australia’s Legacy Award last month, Mr Tarascio reflected on his rags to riches journey.

In 1950, at age five, he stepped off the SS Cyrenia at Victoria Dock with his family following a perilous voyage from Italy.

“We came from a little town in inland Sicily, so neither my mother nor I had even seen the sea, let alone a ship,” he said.

Sam Tarascio as a child (right) with his mother and little brother Rosario pictured for their joint travel documentation in 1950 for their journey to Australia by sea from Italy. Picture: Supplied

With not a lick of English between them, the family settled first in Werribee then in Altona.

His father took up work as a diesel mechanic in North Melbourne while his mother found a job as a seamstress while he and his siblings settled in at St Mary’s Catholic School.

“Most of the other kids would have enough money to go to the canteen and we had no money, so I brought Italian food to school,” he said.

“What we now call French toast was one of the sort of lunches that my mother used to make … and that was a sort of thing that nobody had ever seen.”

While at school, Mr Tarascio became a star soccer player, his passion for the sport drawing him to Hakoah, a Jewish football club whose fellow members lit a fire inside him.

“Every committeeman there that I met, and most of the supporters, they all had a business of some sort and I thought, ‘oh my God, all of these people have got businesses, and they have nice cars’,” he said.

“And that’s when I started to think … if all these people have done it then really I should be able to build something of my own.”

Sam Tarascio dressed for his first Holy Communion in Werribee. Picture: Supplied

Mr Tarascio spent several years as a sales representative, even selling women’s hosiery at one point, before buying a 7000sq m property in Tennyson St, Williamstown.

“Williamstown was pretty swampy back then,” he said.

“But there were not many rules in those days.”

Eventually breaking into logistics and property development, Mr Tarascio’s business Westgate Transport Group became the second-biggest employer in the western suburbs after Toyota.

From humble beginnings in Williamstown, his business was evolving into a multibillion-dollar industrial, residential and commercial development pipeline across the nation.

“It was a matter of understanding where the opportunities were,” Mr Tarascio said.

“Because opportunities can pass you by every day.”

One opportunity Mr Tarascio grabbed enthusiastically was the chance to revive Richmond at the site of the now hugely successful Victoria Gardens precinct.

“It was a Richmond tip,” he said. “It was totally contaminated.

“Our motto when we started was live, work and play at Victoria Gardens.

“You look at it now, that’s exactly what it’s become.”

Mr Tarascio revived the Victoria Gardens precinct.

Today, the Tarascio’s face new challenges. The type of challenges that the property magnate believes could stand in the way of a young and ambitious migrant trying to follow his footsteps.

“There’s a lot more regulation now,” Mr Tarascio said.

“There’s also the union movement.”

As the CFMEU is investigated over allegations of corruption, standover tactics and bikie infiltration on construction sites, Sam Jr said the Allan government needed to demand that the cost of construction was matched with high productivity.

“High costs are OK as long as it comes with high productivity,” he said.

“At the moment there is both high cost and low productivity, and ever-increasing costs and ever-reducing productivity.”

The Tarascios have been battling for years to redevelop the Preston Market – a controversial project blocked by Darebin council and community-based Save The Preston Market Action Group, market traders and the state government.

Salta has owned the market site since 2004. Under the plans, the market facilities would be rebuilt.

“After an extremely long process our determination (continues) to deliver an incredible outcome at the Preston Market which would preserve the market while providing more housing,” Mr Tarascio Jr said. “We will keep pushing for that outcome.”