Harry Triguboff on building a real estate empire

Transcript

Brett Kelly (0s)
Hey, welcome back to the Be Better Off Show. Now we've reached into our archive during this time of the China virus while I'm house bound and confined and can't get out.

Harry Triguboff. What can you say?

At different times he's been Australia's most wealthy man, but more than that, this is a guy who's had an incredible life as a refugee to Australia through some very tough times, came here and has built an incredible company. So have a listen in. It's an incredible opportunity to hear the deep wisdom of somebody who's achieved many of their life's goals. Harry himself says that he's not perfect, but when it comes to building a business, he's pretty good at that. I hope you'll enjoy it.

Brett Kelly (40s)

Ladies and gentlemen, t's great to be here and I guess the theory of, of asking Mr. Triguboff to meet and have a chat was that it's often said that if you lay down with dogs, you could get up with fleas. And my theory has been that if you, if you put yourself in the presence of gold, a little bit of that might rub off. And I mean that from the point of view of great ideas, I guess what I've found across time and meeting interesting people that have done things is that in half an hour, which, which Harry's been so generous to give to us today, we will definitely learn something.

Brett Kelly (1m 22s)

So I've knocked some questions together. I hope I haven't covered them all, and that there'll be some left at the end, but I always ask people when I meet them, you know, was there a particular driving idea person or event that really had the most significant impact on your life? Mr. Mr. T?

Harry Triguboff (1m 39s)

Well, I think that this will happen to me. I was in Australia and that was a textile engineer and I couldn't see any future for a textile engineer. And that was right. I don't think anybody made much other, so I was looking that I was trying to do all kinds of things. And a friend of mine told me that his father spoke to the boss of stocks and holdings and they told him that his son should become a builder. So he came to me and he said, what do you think of building apartments? 

I said, terrific idea. I went there because I already was selling a bit of real estate. So I knew a bit. I went and I bought the first site and I made more money on that site in proportion than I have ever made again. So I knew that this is where I have to be.

Brett Kelly (2m 36s)

Excellent. Excellent. So is there, is there a saying that really sums up your approach to life or a quote or motto?

Harry Triguboff (2m 44s)

Well, I think I only like to be involved when there are problems. When there are problems, I come with an instant solution and it's always wrong, but it doesn't matter. I get all the people around me and I make them all think at once with me. And I promise you, our solution is always the best.

Brett Kelly (3m 05s)

Yep. As a group, that's it. That's how you do it. Excellent. Now, now tell me, and I think everyone's read enough about Mr. Triguboff, both not to labor through the detail of the history, but you get started. You buy this block of land. You're not a builder. You don't have any experience or, or university qualifications or anything like that. But you did have now this block of land, how much debt did you have on this block of land and how concerned were you about the prospects for the first project?

Harry Triguboff (3m 38s)

Right. The reason I went into it, because I knew that there was a big demand and believe me, the demand has never changed from the day I started, which is 50 years ago. So that's the main thing that there's a demand. You have to have demand. I went to the bank manager at ANZ, and I was lucky. They were training him to big things. His name was Rex Davidson. If you ask anybody in the aliens at bank, nobody ever heard of him.

But he ran the bank. He ran the bank, but he loved horses. So he told me I'll lend you money, Harry. And when you reach the roof, I'll come with you. And I'll tell you if you're a builder or you aren't. And if you are, then I'll give you more money. Then it doesn't matter if I'll give you any money, any amount of money you like, but that's when I'll decide. So I wait until I get to the roof, I call him there. He had to look this way and he says, yeah, you're a builder. Now I'll give you any amount of money. You like. So he became the chief lending officer of the ANZ bank. I don't know if there's such a title anymore, but that's who he was.

Brett Kelly (4m 53s)

And did you stay with him for a long time?

Harry Triguboff (4m 55s)

For quite a while. But of course they sent them to Melbourne because that's the head office. And then I used to go to him to  Melbourne, spent half an hour. He gave me another loan. Come back, go back.

Brett Kelly (5m 09s)

And off you go again. So you, you, you make it sound so simple. And, and when you look back, you've got, you hired a bunch of builders subcontractors.

Harry Triguboff (5m 18s)

Just what I did. I took a foreman and that was lucky that the foreman was always drunk. And so here I was stuck with this little building and the foreman was drunk. And in those days, bricklayers were very hard to get. Now, bricklayers are very easy, because what's happening is less bricklayers are required now before this. So then this young bricklayer came to me, a Scotsman and he was a nice fellow. You see in Scotland, the bricklayer, he's the chief contractor. In Australia it's the carpenter.

Harry Triguboff (5m 59s)

So he was teaching me what to do every night. So every night he would tell me what materials we needed next day. I'd get the materials next day. He use the next day. They, and that way I learned very well, cause I had no other job. I had nothing else to do. I stayed all the time on that side. That was so dirty, like worse than all of them. I was, you know, dusty and old, but I learned how to work. And after that, of course I started two, three more jobs at once. But already I knew from the beginning, I never started the second job until I finished the first source to know the whole process, how to get in and how to get out.

Harry Triguboff (6m 42s)

So in that bricklayer stayed with me too. He retired now, his son works for me. Another son worked for me. His partner is here now, today, not this part of the path, the path here he's here. So they've been with me ever since.

Brett Kelly (6m 58s)

Ever since. It was interesting. We were, we were speaking before and often people get involved as they make money. In one thing, they assume that they're brilliant at everything and get involved in other activities, activities we've seen a lot of people not do so well when they do that, you mentioned that you stayed on the site all the time. And as I understand in the last 50 years, you've pretty much stuck to your knitting of just building residential apartments.

Harry Triguboff (7m 21s)

Yeah. I think being clever is very good, but you must like what you do and it's impossible to like everything. So if you find one thing that you like and stick to it, and until you find that thing, keep looking because the main thing is you have to like what you do and then the rest will come by itself.

Brett Kelly (7m 45s)

Excellent. So it's interesting is, as we look at it, it seems so natural now that you would own your own business and that it would be the success that it is. But when you started that project, did you have any intention to get into your own business and, and not to work in someone else's I know when I started it was mine. Yes, that's right. Was that your intention?

Harry Triguboff (8m 07s)

Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to be by myself. Yeah. I tried to be a public company. I lasted a few months. That was not my cup of tea. I sold the shares for 50 cents. I bought them back for a dollar 20. Everybody was happy, no problems. 'Cause that was in love with the company. How can I sell it?

Brett Kelly (8m 27s)

Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Now, now you say that was it as simple as, as somebody said to you, you could make some money in real estate build some apartments, but you've mentioned now that you really love it. Was it love at first sight in the property industry?

Harry Triguboff (8m 47s)

Yeah, I did. Yeah. I liked it. And that's very important because if you like it, then the people, the business will like you and they will work probably better than if there wasn't, this relationship is very important.

Brett Kelly (9m 05s)

And so even still now, as you build, you know, seemingly bigger, better, best you get on top of the project. You're still there very, very often. Yeah. Every morning, every morning you visit sites that leads to asking you, what does that go up? But later of course we do. A little bit later than you did now.

Brett Kelly (9m 31s)

So that, so today, what is the typical Harry Triguboff day look like?

Harry Triguboff (9m 37s)

Oh, Is there one? Oh yeah. Yeah. Very similar everyday similar. Well, I get up, I read the paper, finished reading the paper. I take my medicines. My medicines. I go for a walk every day. I go for, go for a walk, have my breakfast with my dog. Then I go to work. So I get to work 11 o'clock 1130, but then I stay till six, seven o'clock I work hours.

Harry Triguboff (10m 17s)

So then when I leave the home, the dog walk, I go around the jobs. Then I come to work, maybe one o'clock maybe sometimes a bit later. And then I work in the office. So that's every day, the second that's the day.

Brett Kelly (10m 33s)

Excellent. What do you think? You know, the bigger picture issues we were talking before, but what do you think are the most critical issues facing Australian business right now? And certainly your business?

Harry Triguboff (10m 45s)

Yeah, well, we are very lucky that China adores us and that's just like, I like my business. They like this country. It's not only a matter of money. They like the life, so that's good. So they help us. But of course this is still not their home. Their home is China. And even though we are very successful in selling to so many Chinese now I always am fighting. Not that I need to because there's so many Chinese to get Australians into the market because the market is good when the local people are in it and believe in it and support.

And that's what I want. And that is why I'm always fighting the reserve bank because these interest rates make it impossible for people to buy. And he knows it and it's not his fault. It's the, it's the, the, the whole group of them that runs the place. And he will leave in another bowl comment, what would be same level change. So this is one problem that we have is that we must get those interest rates down. The other thing is that the money people have lots of money in super, but they have no money in the bank. And the super funds are not built to help people buy property.

So they can't afford to buy property, which they should buy. Instead, the Superfund spend money on shares and other things. So I want that to be changed. So that's the third big problem here is that the politicians run the place very hard, very hard to be a politician and run it. A politician wants to be popular with everyone. Well it's okay. But if you're popular with everyone, it's very little you can do because you want this. He wants that. What does he do?

No good. So there has to be given more power to, to the doers, to the mechanics and laws have to be made so that they get the power. The politicians must be prepared to let go of the power so they can do it. The problem is the country is the same.

Brett Kelly (13m 17s)

And what's your view. There's a lot of talk about immigration. What's your view on immigration? I've heard you talk about it before, but would you share it with, with the group?

Harry Triguboff (13m 26s)

Yeah. Well, we're a huge country and we need a lot of people. Unfortunately, we, our philosophy is very much and intertwined with what they do in Europe and America and everywhere else.

This is different. We are a huge country and you can't run it with no people. I'll give you an example. They talk about mining. If you go to Lake Eyre and that area there, you will see, there are no roads. There are no railways. There's nothing there. Or you can't develop if you don't have facilities. So we must develop facilities. We won't develop them unless we have people. We can't, we can't do enough unless we have people. People must come. We need them. And it's good that we really, we can pick. Everybody wants to come here, but it's no good picking them if they understand crickets or they understand something else, they must be useful. There must be workers. So unless we bring them, it's no good. Of course, for housing, they all believe in housing and they all need housing. So it's terrific.

Brett Kelly (14m 40s)

Excellent. Now it was interesting. Mike mentioned before Mike, that Harry has the biggest or the tallest project in, in Sydney, the tallest project currently in Brisbane is better, better to lose the crown to himself again. But, and then Mike mentioned that, you know, are you competing with someone else or is it, or is it an approach? Have you really just competed with yourself?

Harry Triguboff (15m 03s)

Always is myself. I don't compete with others. Others don't exist. They tell them diversify, if you want to, I never diversified. I don't need to diversify. I stick to what I like, and I know what I can do. And I know what the country needs and what the people want. So I don't compete with anyone. They can't compete with me because unfortunately when they go to a certain size, they become public companies and public companies. They tell them to diversify. So you might have been good at doing what I'm doing, but suddenly he starts doing 10 other things of which probably eight are no good. And he thinks.

Brett Kelly (15m 45s)

Very interesting. Okay. It's an insight where, where does somebody at, at your stage now and having had the success you've had, it's understandable that you have that confidence. Did you always have that confidence? Probably. Always. Oh yeah, no problem. I get that sense. Important.

Harry Triguboff (16m 06s)

Very important. All of you must have confidence. When you go to a bank, if you don't have confidence, then the bank gets more scared than you are. So always be confident. And when you work with a bank, you must make him your partner. He must know everything gave him all the problems. The pastor let him work for it then, but he knows your business. He's your friend. But if you run away from him, you're gone. That's all.

Brett Kelly (16m 33s)

Excellent. Very, very good. I think that was the worst worth. The price of a seasons ticket, right there. Is there anyone that, that, that you've looked at and understanding that you've competed with yourself, but is there anyone that you've looked at that's really inspired you, whether it was your, your parents or a friend, someone else in business or, or society generally?

Harry Triguboff (16m 56s)

Well, if I look at the successful people and I see some of them are still older than I am now, they're the ones that give me confidence if they can do it.

Brett Kelly (16m 33s)

Yeah. Excellent. All right. Now it's very interesting that the obviously legendary American investor Warren Buffett's is that he doesn't believe in diversification. He believes that concentration leads to concentration. So you share that view in terms of your business. I read an article. It mentioned that many of your managers need to, you know, I saw one of your people there before turn up with one page summaries of their projects or business plans or, or current status of their projects. I was intrigued by that. Can you explain that to me?

Harry Triguboff (16m 56s)

I take home every weekend, pile of papers that thick, very important. Now go through them. And some things I don't understand some things I don't agree. So I make notes. Then next week they fix all this and look at it again. So I continue looking all the time. Now, the page that we talk about, that's different. When I first started, I had one page and now I have six pages. That's all I have. And that summarises all the movements have to know. That's simple though. The big pack is where it's in detailed, simple one. I get everyday, I get six pages and watching the six pages. It says, how many units we have for sale? How many we've got deposits on how many we have exchanged? How many units releasing, how many units are up to the roof? How many units are started and how much empty land I have. That's all money. Doesn't come into it. Nothing to do with money.

Brett Kelly (18m 54s)

Okay. Now, now I've also read that, that you were very advantaged during the global financial crisis and, and subsequently because you have little or no need for debt. Can you talk to us about that? You've talked about your, the bank. Bring your friend. Yeah. It sounds like you don't need a friend anymore at the bank. No, no. They need me. I give them my best friend. I know you're a good deposit. Very good. So how important, you know, in your view, there's a lot of talk now globally around, you know, suitable levels of gearing on all sorts of assets and projects, right? What do you think is a suitable level of gearing on the types of projects that you run?

Harry Triguboff (16m 56s)

Yeah. It depends. When you start, you need the bank because you can't start without the bank a hundred percent. So you get from him, whatever you care should always pay him back. As you pay him back, he wants to give you more back and give him more. But then when you reach a certain size, you must decide what you want to do. Do you want to work for him or do you want to work for you? So that's when you start getting less into debt, that means that you will not grow as fast as you could agree, but then it gives you peace of mind.

Because sometimes when you're overextended, it's very difficult. See the banks ever vary and that's worldwide. It's not only here. We learned from the other section. That's what they do. When there is a boom, when things are easy, banks compete with each other and they want to give you more money than you need. And you grow very quickly. And then you are in a big hurry and you grow as fast as you can, and they give you more energy force. And then something happens. And in today's world, it's not even to do with Australia, maybe Greece with something that has nothing to do with us. Then suddenly a new face appears in the bank and he says, you owe him money and you have to pay back.

So I think that seeing that, that could always happen to you. You should be always well secured. You should give him not as little as possible, but as much as possible so that everybody's happy because you see the bank manager deals with you in the beginning. It's not the Sally, the bank manager who finishes with you. So these are the things of life, but to start, you need them grab as much as you can pay them as quickly as you can and then be comfortable.

Brett Kelly (21m 36s)

Excellent. Now, now, Harry, we were talking before that, Oh, I like cars. Somebody, some other people probably do too. I know that you've got some great cars. And one of the tensions that often we see with business people is, you know, when is the right time to buy your first Bentley

Harry Triguboff (21m 57s)

First of all, you must be able to pay cash for it because the moment you take it out, it's not worth half of what you paid. So you must understand that. So money must matter to you. But I, I used to have beautiful American cars when I first started. Oh yes. It's really nice. When you drive around the cross cars. Very nice. But there wasn't, we didn't go for Bentleys. We went for American cars. I think I had every type of big American car that was, and then I went from Mercedes, but they are a bit down. It must have been good. COVID Bentley is very nice. I loved them. You know, top, top, then down. Everything of course, SUV is now taking that away before that, the man that's how you do it.

Brett Kelly (22m 56s)

Very good. We've got a question here. What's the, what's the best and worst client customer or, or supplier lesson that you've had Start with the best, I guess.

Harry Triguboff (23m 11s)

Best time. Right? So things were very tough. In 1973, Citibank came into Australia, they're going to bake a lot of money. And then they decided in 74, that, that was broken. I proved to them, I was not broke. They were convinced I was broke. I paid them all the money back and around 75, I think it was, they gave me a check of $2 million present. Cause they never believed that. Pay them back. What they, they thought that they would stop me from building, but they could cause that started buildings on my money.

And then I'd tell them, right. It's mortgage too. You take half finished building. So they then started pleading with me not to do it to them. I said, I'll do it to you because that's the way I'll pay you back. And I had the list in my office and every day I showed them how I diminished the debt. Every day I diminished, I built one, I sold two. I built one. I sold every day. They were so happy. That was the best relationship I've ever had. I've never worked with them since, but that was

Harry Triguboff (24m 28s)

What's the worst one I had was with a subcontractor. He was a nice boy, but he was a bit crazy.

I have my way of paying And he disagreed with the way I paid him. So he came into my room and the had a gun and it was wrapped up in a piece of paper. And it was lucky that the girl was with me there and she saw him and she started screaming and I had my other fellow there and he grabbed him. We took away the gun and his father came to me and he told me, you know, the boys, not right in the mind, he was a good worker, but you know that, that was bad. So whenever you get a subcontractor, he was make sure he's known.

Brett Kelly (25m 36s)

Talk to us about taxation. What, what's your view on, on tax? Has it affected you and how much do you like it or do you enjoy paying it?

Harry Triguboff (25m 47s)

Well, taxation's like this Tax used to be easy, but once upon a time we used to buy loss companies. We used to go into mining. We did all kinds of things. It was very simple, But then they decided to get tough with us and all these big ideas disappeared. So of course, as they disappeared, suddenly I owed money to the tax. I think I owed the most money in the country.

So they came to me and they said, owe money. Very good. How much money? They told us Apple. So we worked with that, How we reduced it. And the main thing was that I learned one thing, shouldn't assume that I will not pay tax.

Because those days have gone. But even in those days, I should have assumed that now there were big companies who disagreed with me and they didn't pay the tax. And there's two fighting them 30 years later. But I paid tax after we agreed on the price and I became the best friend of the taxation, the best friend. And since then I'm paying him taxes. But what I do, I keep lots of my properties. So if you keep the properties in this country and the capital gain is there, you don't pay tax, which is beautiful. Only pay tax on the rent. You don't pay all the taxes rent because you have depreciation.

So that's the beauty of my business. You see, I build a property. I already made a profit. I don't pay tax because I keep I then lease it. And then I don't pay all the tax on the red because it's depreciation. So I pay very little tax. I do pay tax though on the ones I sell. Right? So what we have to do in my case is I have to buy a lot of empty land because I think that I can get very good close space ratio on the land because you see the government realizes the class, how important it is to have housing. So if you can explain to them that what you say is right, and what they say is wrong and you even make more money on that.

And in the meantime you keep the lead and you, and of course it brings the income. So that's again, how you avoid in my case texts, that's all legal. That's how you do. Excellent.

That was good. Wasn't it? Very good. That's very good. He likes it because he understands that. Well, I understand tax, it took me 30 years to figure it out, but he knows it's very interesting. There's a, there's a, there's a great book that some French academics published on, on billionaires and they, they studied 32 billionaires and how they became billionaires. And, and they said that there was a great wealth driving event at one point. And one of the ones that they have have demonstrated was that tax is a huge driver. Obviously, if you can minimize paying 30 plus percent tax and the, the cumulative effect of that over a long period of time, certainly over 50 years is enormous.

Brett Kelly (29m 05s)

So, you know, obviously that's the business we're in, in Texas is really important. Is there one thing that, that you think that anyone who wants to succeed in business should definitely not forget?

Harry Triguboff (29m 17s)

Well, the bigger you become, the harder you work. So if you think that by being bigger, you will be able to relax. It's wrong. So you decide now, if you are prepared to work hard, okay. If you don't don't bother

Brett Kelly (29m 35s)

Excellent. Just still sign all the checks. I did hear that rumor. No, no, no, no. You don't sign all the, how hands on are you in the business? Very, very hands on. And you mentioned before you thought just time allows as much. Yes. Excellent. What about the role of, of, of your family and spouse in terms of growing this business? How much of an impact as a business that size have on your, on your family life?

Harry Triguboff (30m 01s)

Well, the first two wives didn't take much interest. Two daughters, not much interest our grandchildren. One, the big grand daughter takes an interest. The other three is two to two year. So there's still hope. Yep. But I hope I will change the daughters first go that, but you know, to change them also requires a lot of work for me. It's one thing to make money. It's another thing to make what I do attractive to them.

Yep. So far I haven't succeeded, but keep trying very good.

Brett Kelly (30m 53s)

Now, now you're, you're older than 50. What are your, what are your future plans? What are your personal future plans? What are your plans for marathon?

Harry Triguboff (31m 05s)

I we'll keep on doing the same thing. It's very good. And I think that I'm still a few years left. Very good, no build 70 stories. Now, 80 stories. When you do a hundred, how high can you go as high as the council's approved? So sometimes change their minds but time. But the problem is with building tall buildings, really, it's not the best way to make money. Cause you see, when you spread the building on lower levels, say 10 floors, 12, 15 floors. You can build many at once.

When you build one tall, one like that, you're limited because you can only build in that little space. Therefore it takes a long time, but anyway, we're making changes so that we can make it quick.

Brett Kelly (31m 59s)

Okay. Now there's been some changes in new South Wales about how large property, large property developments are approved, which we were talking about. Can you talk to us about that? And also mentioned what happened up at Warriewood?

Harry Triguboff (32m 13s)

Right? Well, after many years, the labour government understood labor government, state, government, and the Stute that councils would not approve. And if they approved, it would be in such a way as to make sure that the developer would go broke, which is even worse because the developer puts his last money in the bank, gives them the money and the rest is history. We know what happened. So they then decided that the state government would approve big projects. And that was going on very well. But the federal decided that he would say that the council should get back there.

The power, of course, he wanted to control them and said, well, Andy was thinking of cottages because you see where you get approves and cottages. Nobody protests. Everybody's very happy because nobody, the councils, they have no money. So they approve anything very easy. What he overlooked is that the people don't want to live where we can build cottages. Cottages we built are in the wrong place. I say, what we should do with cottages is renovate, rebuild, fix the old ones. We have so many thousands of them, hundreds of millions of them just fix those big job.

Don't, don't worry about new ones. Just fix those. But now we have the problem. What will happen when the councils will regain a lot of their power. Now I hope that we will learn how to contain that power. But at this stage, it's not sure yet how it will happen. Not true. So we might even have less production than before that, even though you can produce cottages, which nobody wants, it will be difficult to get approvals for partments which everybody wants. Now what happened worry would was they had a crazy code there and I bought the land and they wouldn't approve what I thought they should approve, which had nothing to do with their coat.

So I went to Sato, he was the minister and sat down, said, I can't do anything with these guys because they control the upper house. There was a McTaggart, he was a member. He was an independent, he was scared of attack of the old control of the house. Right. So anyways, so then they get reelected. And now at last slave McTaggart is gone. Labor, labor is controlled and we come up with the same plans. So then they saw the plans again and they said, yeah, we'll approve. I got the approval. So then the mayor of Pittwater, which is what he would decide that he was going to go against us.

So here was a very interesting case. I had the planning department on my side and the council. He was like, normally the developer who is objecting, I loved it. You know, it wouldn't even matter who won, but that, just that picture something I waited for for 50 years, I saw the picture, the, on that side, not on this side. And now I'm on this side. I'm like the council, I got approval. It was very dangerous. What I did because in his heart, the planning department would be on their side, not on my side. What I did was this, since I had the approval, I started building and I built as fast as I could.

Then I decided what would the judge do? Tell me to pull down the building very hard. And the council was scared to put an injunction on me because then they would be liable to pay if they were wrong. So there they are winging over there. I will add love. You should see the window.

Things. I would see wins. And I was building and building and I told them, have they ever looked at me? And the way, thank God we, the judge decided that we were right. A hundred percent. Right. And they have to pay my costs.

Brett Kelly (36m 17s)

That's fantastic. All right. Well, that's Mr. Triguboff. I'm so pleased that you came in and shared that with us today. I know that Mike's got some, some microphones out there. I think to take some questions. If people have come up with some questions.

End of transcript