Tony Perich’s fortune reared in Sydney’s outer western suburbs

Tony Perich has transformed into a billionaire with a portfolio that spans dairy, property and retail.

Tony Perich, billionaire property developer and also one of the nation’s biggest dairy cattle owners. Picture: David Moir

Sydney’s outer western suburbs have made Tony Perich a billionaire.

Perich and his family’s wealth is just about all based in Sydney’s southwest, where his Croatian immigrant parents established a dairy farm in 1951 with 25 cows after living on small land holdings in the Liverpool area, where they grew tomatoes for sale at the Sydney Markets.

The dairy business that his ­father Kolombo Perich established grew into Leppington Pastoral, which now more than 2000 cows across 11,000ha and also has more than 6000ha of grain and hay on land in the central west of NSW. He still lives on the same tract of land the family purchased at Bringelly for its first diary farm.

Perich also owns a large stake in ASX-listed health foods group Freedom Foods (FNP), which has, like much of the market, started 2019 strongly. Freedom shares are up since January 1, though are still trading at about 40 per cent less than their six-month high of just over $7 in September last year.

The Perich stake in Freedom Foods — which produces a range of allergen-free breakfast cereals, such as gluten free and dairy products — is now worth about $680 million. Freedom also makes a range of fresh and long-life drinks and seafood. Its brands include Crunchola, So Natural, Australia’s Own and Norganic.

Perich has long been a Freedom shareholder, with the most recent transaction for him and his family being the purchase of almost $1m worth of shares in October at a price of $5.55 a share. On Friday, Freedom shares closed at $5.39. But Perich, having had a major stake for more than a decade, is well and truly ahead on his investment.

Yet he would have done even better off had he and Freedom remained shareholders in the a2 Milk company, having sold its 117 million shares in a2 for $93m in 2015. Those shares would

be worth about $1.3bn today.

While Freedom is their biggest shareholding, the Perich family also has a diverse range of private investments, including fertiliser, wood shavings and transport holdings, and a share in Pulai Mining, a company mining for gold in central Malaysia.

But an increasing part of Perich’s wealth is from property. His Greenfields group is developing thousands of residential lots and the Oran Park town centre project. He and brother Ron Perich control about 12,500 housing lots in western Sydney, and the 1100ha Oran Park project in southwest Sydney on the site of a former motor racing track.

Oran Park hosted touring cars and other racing competitions for decades, but now is one of the country’s fastest-growing areas as part of what is estimated eventually to be a $4bn project. It already has the state’s biggest Woolworths and work this year is expected to begin on a six-storey office tower in the town centre, the tallest in the Camden municipality. The area is expected to experience a jobs boom thanks to being only 20km away from the new airport at Badgerys Creek.

Perich also unsuccessfully battled the NSW government to maintain control of land near the soon to be build airport at Badgerys Creek.

Yet perhaps the most successful, and one of the lesser known parts of Perich’s portfolio is a retail complex. He has half of Dart West Developments, which has a retail arm that owns what has been described as Australia’s largest family-owned shopping centre, Narellan Town Centre.

Dart West Developments made a $20m profit last year, according to documents lodged with the Australian Securities & Investments Commission, with the other half of the business owned by western Sydney developer Arnold Vitocco.

Narellan Town Centre underwent a $200m expansion two years ago that added 70 shops to its already sprawling complex. Some estimates have it as the biggest privately and family-held shopping mall in the country.

The centre opened in 1995 and has been expanded several times.