Farming billionaire Bob Ingham dies aged 88

Billionaire chicken farmer, racehorse breeder and ‘pioneer’ entrepreneur Robert Ingham – who was simply known as “Bob” dies at the age of 88.

Bob Ingham at the Inglis Australian Yearling Sales.

It is known as the Ingham mansion, a Spanish, ranch-style, single-storey home complete with pool and tennis court set on eight hectares of land on Old Kurrajong Road in the western Sydney suburb of Casula.

Billionaire chicken farmer, racehorse breeder and entrepreneur Robert Ingham – who was simply known as “Bob” from an early age – lived there for more than eight decades until his death this week at the age of 88.

His family confirmed he passed away on Tuesday surrounded by his loved ones.

In 1918 his father Walter started Inghams Enterprises at the opposite end of Kurrajong Rd in the neighbouring suburb of Prestons, on a farm surrounded by 42 acres of sprawling bushland.

He had just six hens and a rooster.

He slowly expanded the business through the Depression and World Wars.

When Walter died in 1953, he left Bob and his brother Jack the Prestons chicken factory that they expanded into a national business in the 1960s as the original factory site was eventually hemmed in by the sprawl of western suburbs suburbia.

“We all grew up in Casula as kids and my dad is still there – he has lived all of his life on the one property,” Bob’s son Robby Ingham said in 2017.

“It is amazing to see how hands-on my father and uncle were growing it from a local community business to a national business with 8000 people working there.”

“They treated the workers like family, even as they grew, they always kept that feeling.”

When Jack Ingham passed away in 2003, Bob became the sole shareholder of the company known as Ingham Enterprises, which had grown to become a billion dollar firm and the nation’s largest chicken producer.

In January 2003, Bob was awarded an order of Australia “for service to the poultry industry as a pioneer in research and development and establishment of world best practice standards, and to the community through support for a broad range of charitable organisations and health care facilities”.

Bob Ingham.

But a chicken farm was not the only prized asset Bob and his brother inherited from their father.

The other was a thoroughbred broodmare called Valiant Rose, who was descended from a champion English racehorse.

It would form the foundation of the Ingham’s horse breeding operation, which took off in 1986 when the brothers purchased the Woodlands Stud.

It became the largest racing and breeding operation in Australia which at its peak was home to over 1,300 horses and countless champions. The Ingham brothers became known by punters as “The Chicken Kings”.

In 2004 Bob was inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame and continued to run Woodlands after his brother’s death, spending more than $46 million at the Inglis Easter sales between 2003 and 2008.

In more than 40 years in racing, the Inghams owned 84 group one winners, including Octagonal and his son, Lonhro.

They also had an interest in eight Golden Slipper winners including Sweet Embrace, Guineas, Prowl and Forensics, which was their last winner in 2007. But they never won a Melbourne Cup.

In 2007 Australia Post honoured Bob with a postage stamp in his memory. A year later he sold the Woodland Stud operation to Dubai’s ruler, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, for $500 million.

The family then established the Ingham Racing syndicate, which allowed each of Bob’s children to remain involved in the industry.

“Bob always had a passion for horse racing. Along with Jack they turned this passion into the largest thoroughbred racing and breeding operation in Australia at the time,” the Ingham family said in a statement.

“He was a pioneer and visionary of his day whose work and legacy will live on for many years.

“His hard work, commitment and philosophy of ‘doing the right things and doing things right’ underpinned everything he did. He made us very proud. We will miss him greatly.”

“Bob, along with his brother Jack, made a significant contribution over the past 60-plus years not just to the needs of Liverpool’s local population but also the greater southwest Sydney community and ultimately, through one of Australia’s homegrown business success of Inghams Enterprises, the wider Australian population,” his family said.

Three of his children, Lyn, Robby and John Ingham still race horses under the syndicate while Daughter, Debbie Kepitis, is one of the owners of legendary racehorse Winx.

Debbie recently said that her father kept up with the champion’s progress.

“He’s content just to be at home. But he watches Winx’s races on TV and I always ring him afterwards,” she said.

In July 2012 Bob put his iconic poultry company on the market when he appointed Investec to help sell the company, ending 94 years of ownership by the Ingham family.

“My decision marks the next phase for the successful ongoing development of the company and is one that I, as sole shareholder, have considered for a number of years,” he said in a rare public statement at the time.

It was reported that he wanted to keep the family inheritance intact before he passed away, given none of his four children were interested in taking over the poultry business.

That year he also established the Ingham Institute in Liverpool, an independent non-profit medical research organisation.

The family’s history is now on display at the Liverpool Regional Museum.

In March 2013 he found a buyer for Inghams in the form of private equity group TPG Capital, which agreed pay $880 million in cash for the poultry assets. The Ingham family retained a bunch of property assets and the racing business.

In November 2016 Inghams Group was listed on the ASX for the first time in a $1.2 billion float of the company.

Today Inghams accounts for nearly 40 per cent of the country’s chicken and has contracts with fast food giants such as KFC and ­McDonald’s, as well as grocery chains Woolworths and Coles.

In The Australian’s Richest 250, Bob was valued at $1.01bn, making him one of the nation’s top 100 billionaires

While going public was very much the antithesis of this deeply private family, even in death Bob Ingham would be proud in knowing the Australian community has a share in the business his father created.