Our special guest on this episode is Arnold Vitocco - Founder & Managing Director of diversified family office Vitocco Enterprises.
Vitocco Enterprises is one of Australia’s most successful family-run private corporations, with a pedigree dating back some seventy years and a portfolio of assets that encompasses holdings across the property development, real estate investment, retail, agriculture and food and beverage sectors.
The origins of the company date back to Arnold’s father Domenic Vitocco OAM, whom migrated from Italy to Liverpool in 1956 and set about learning the fundamentals of construction, initially working as a concreter before launching & successfully building his own business, D. Vitocco Constructions into a major property player in Sydney’s South West over the course of the next forty years - a period that saw the business develop an estimated two-thousand residential & commercial properties including apartments, factories & office buildings across Liverpool, Macarthur and surrounds.
With exposure to property development and the rigours of business from an early-age, Arnold followed in his father’s footsteps.
Between 1977 and 1982, he attended boarding school at St Gregory’s College, before later enrolling in a four-year Diploma of Building Certificate course at Granville College (now known as TAFE Granville).
Following completion of his studies, Arnold worked in the family business before identifying an opportunity in the late 1980’s that would become one of the pivotal moments of his career. In 1989, after witnessing the growth of South-West Sydney first-hand, Arnold aged twenty-four recognised the region’s lack of retail amenity presented an immense opportunity and set about acquiring the first five-acre parcel of land and old shops for a million dollars in a joint-venture partnership with Tony Perich - they later acquired a further 55,000sqm of land and bridge linking another 75,000sqm of land totalling 150,000sqm of land.
That fortuitous deal with Tony some three decades ago has become legendary, owing to the rise of Narellan Town Centre, the privately held shopping centre the pair opened in 1995 and have steadfastly built into one of the Country’s largest and most successful retail centres, incorporating in excess of 71,000sqm of retail, 11m visitors per year and an estimated book value of some $800m plus - with further capacity to grow up to 150,000 sqm of retail mixed use.
Whilst widely recognised for his success with Narellan, Arnold has completed a number of similar cornerstone deals over the past two decades including the development as a joint venture with the Marist Bros. of the 2,800 plus lot Gregory Hills community, the 7,000 lot Lowes Creek Maryland community, the 45 hectare Central Hills Business Park, 1,400 lot subdivision as a joint venture with Cameron Brae at Emerald Hills and the Emerald Hills Shopping Village to name a few.
Outside of property development, he has also diversified the company’s portfolio including into the agriculture sector via Vitocco Pastoral Company with 500 head of cattle as well as the Food & Beverage industry via the renowned Max Brenner chain and Benchmark Patisserie Australia.
Alongside his commercial interests, Arnold is a noted philanthropist, donating his time and resources to a range of causes including as a Board Member of the Ingham Institute of Medical Research, the Vitocco Family Kitchen and the Vitocco Legacy Project at the Parramatta Powerhouse donating $5m.
Our exclusive discussion with Arnold charts his family’s background, his key achievements in both business and life, the fundamentals for success and the next chapter in the evolution of Vitocco Enterprises.
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