Premix Concrete SA: The family story behind the quiet rise of a South Australian concrete empire

From humble beginnings with one truck to striking at multimillion-dollar deal, the Femia family are quiet achievers. See how they built a concrete empire.

Premix Concrete SA founder Vic Femia with his sons Frank, Nick and Rob.

Premix Concrete SA is one of the state’s quiet achievers. A story of an immigrant dream brought to life through hard work, innovation and a commitment to customers.

From humble beginnings with a single truck in the late 1980s, the Femia family has increased its fleet over the years, expanded into quarry operations and launched new products, increasing its workforce to more than 100 employees across around 10 sites.

The growth has culminated in a multimillion-dollar agreement to sell the business to industry giant Adbri, which SA Business Chamber chief executive Andrew Kay describes as a “reward for hard work and excellence”.

“This is another success story of a local business that has been quietly excelling in their chosen field over a long period of time,” he said.

“While we often read about the latest high performing tech, defence or space operation, it’s also important to recognise those businesses that fly under the radar employing South Australians, contributing to our economy and getting the job done.”

From a small business with humble roots in Adelaide’s north to a concrete empire with production plants and quarries across the state – this is the story of how the Femias conquered SA’s concrete industry.

Early years

Born in the beachside town of Marina di Gioiosa Ionica in Calabria, southern Italy, in 1937, Vittorio (Vic) Femia arrived in Australia and worked for the Salisbury Council for five years until buying a concrete truck at the age of 24 and delivering cement for Readymix for 28 years.

Premix Concrete SA founder Vic Femia with his sons Frank, Nick and Rob pictured in 2011. Picture: File

Determined to build a strong family business, Mr Femia started Premix Concrete SA in 1989 with four people and one truck, taking on a lot of risk.

His three sons, Frank, Nick and Rob joined the business, and have helped steer its growth.

“Service is our key to success because on-time delivery is crucial to our customers,’’ Frank Femia told The Advertiser during an interview in 2011.

“It’s a very exacting business with every load tested to conform with Australian standards in our own laboratory.’’

In the early years Premix Concrete SA earned a reputation as an honest, reliable and respected supplier of pre-mixed concrete, providing a platform for growth over the next three decades.

Premix Concrete SA’s growth

By 2011, Premix Concrete SA employed 45 people and owned 34 concrete trucks and tippers, with three computerised concrete mixing plants at Salisbury, Lonsdale and Gawler to ensure consistent quality and quantity.

It had become a major supplier of pre-mixed concrete for industrial, commercial and domestic users, ranging from large scale commercial projects to the “backyard blitz”.

By this time the Femia family was also developing interests in other markets and formed other divisions such as Clinton Sands, a supplier of concrete sands and speciality sands.

In 2012 it established Adelaide Industrial Sands, setting up a state-of-the-art processing facility at Salisbury South to process materials extracted from its Clinton quarry on the Yorke Peninsula into high quality silica, turf and filter sands for a range of industries.

Nick Femia from Premix Concrete SA. Picture: File

Four years later the family took over the Seelander Quarry at Penrice, where it extracts concrete sands and rock products including rubbles, screenings and gravel.

One of the major changes that the Femia family implemented upon acquiring Seelander Quarry was dispensing with an ageing fixed crushing plant and introducing modern mobile crushers and screens, and a fleet of the latest model front-end loaders to undertake processing of aggregates on-site.

Vic Femia died in 2020 at the age of 83. Frank, Nick and Rob continued to oversee the business, alongside Andrew Gerace, who’s been the company’s chief executive since 2018.

Today, the Salisbury-headquartered company operates four concrete plants at Gawler, Callington, Lonsdale and Salisbury, the Seelander Quarry, the Clinton Sands quarry and Adelaide Industrial Sands.

Multimillion-dollar sale

In recent weeks the Femia family struck a deal to sell Premix Concrete SA to industry giant Adbri.

The proposed sale includes the group’s core ready-mix concrete supply business, as well as its quarry and sand processing operations. A sale price has not been disclosed.

The group employs a total of more than 100 workers, with its pre-mixed concrete products – including its flagship Stylecrete decorative concrete range – supplied for industrial, commercial and domestic users, ranging from large scale commercial developments to small residential projects.

Premix Concrete SA’s Scott Dykstra with Stylecrete products. Picture: Keryn Stevens

The Femia family and Adbri have both declined to comment on the deal, which is currently under review by the ACCC.

The ACCC’s investigation is focused on the impact of the proposed acquisition on competition in the South Australian market, given the overlap in the supply of ready-mix concrete and aggregates.

Adbri manufactures, imports and supplies building materials across Australia, and has 12 ready-mix sites across the greater Adelaide area, as well as two hard rock quarries at Penrice and Sellicks Hill, and two sand quarries on the Yorke Peninsula.

Submissions to the ACCC review close on June 27, with the findings expected to be released on August 28.

The deal also requires the approval of the Foreign Investment Review Board, given the recent $2.1bn acquisition of Adbri by a consortium led by Irish building materials group CRH.

Originally published as Premix Concrete SA: The family story behind the quiet rise of a South Australian concrete empire