Buccaneering businessman John Elliott dies (2024)

“They are joined in grief by numerous nieces, nephews, grandchildren and other close relatives. Vale Dad.”

Tom Elliott’s wife Elise also posted her own tribute to her father-in-law on Twitter.

Former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett said: “He was a larger than life character. We will miss him. We will miss him for a whole range of reasons.

“He was a very committed individual to the conservative side of politics. It is the passing of another extraordinary individual. He lived life to the full. He made some mistakes, none of us are perfect.

“I’m sorry to hear of his passing but think he would be glad not to continue in the state he was in.”

Victoria’s opposition leader Matthew Guy said, “John was a giant, politically, in business and in his love of all things Victorian, particularly the Carlton footy club. He will be sorely missed.”

John Elliott’s influence loomed large across the business, football and political worlds for many years.

Unconventional and unfailingly politically incorrect at a time when that wasn’t a disqualifying character trait, he was often spotted having a cigarette outside the Savage Club or the historic Mitre Tavern pub and could still be seen out and about Melbourne’s CBD right up[ until the pandemic locked down Melbourne early last year.

The former chairman of the Elders IXL brewing to resources conglomerate, former president of the Australian Liberal Party and president of the Carlton Football Club during its 1980s heyday was 79.

He would have turned 80 on October 3.

Huge ambition

One of the sharpest minds of his generation, Mr Elliott rose to prominence as a buccaneering businessman and Liberal Party powerbroker in the 1980s after he and a group of like-minded business school graduates took over a series of companies, starting with a venerable old jam-making concern Henry Jones IXL and following that with Elders, a stock and station agent, and Carlton & United Breweries.

One after another, he and his coterie including Geoff Lord snapped up companies rich in assets and tired in spirit, using borrowed money and liberating their prey’s cash by stripping companies back to their core business.

He backed his smaller operations into bigger icons, along the way winning the reluctant respect of those who could see the sense.

Each target was larger than the one that preceded it and by the late 1980s the Elders empire sprawled across brewing, finance, property and resources as well as the original businesses.

Mr Elliott and his colleagues’ ambitions reached their zenith when they made an unsuccessful takeover tilt at Britain’s Allied Lyons brewery giant only to be blocked by the nation’s conservative Mergers and Monopolies Commission. They later bought the Courage pubs and brewing group in the UK, and then stepped into to take a stake in BHP to protect it from the takeover ambitions of an even more modern raider of the times, rival entrepreneur Robert Holmes a Court.

But as their debts mounted along with their ambitions, and their tactics attracted the ire of the still influential Melbourne establishment which closed ranks against them, the Elders empire became increasingly stretched.

Elliott almost won establishment hearts when he rode to the rescue of the Big Australian, when Mr Holmes a Court launched a protracted siege of the mining and steelmaking giant that was lionised in televisions advertisem*nts fronted by the avuncular actor Bill Hunter.

For a time, Elliott sat on the BHP board, the apex of corporate Australia. And his Elders IXL, afire with its bid to “Fosterise” the world, was at the centre of corporate Australia, worth $10 billion.

Unfortunately, the recession and crushing interest rates of the early 1990s exposed the weaknesses in the empire, and it unravelled, leaving Mr Elliott a much reduced figure, who nevertheless didn’t retreat from public life.

By 1990 Elliott had fallen off the Rich List after his wealth fell from $78 million to around $32 million. In January 2005, Elliott declared himself bankrupt.

These days, Elders is a pared back business - sticking to its core of rural services, supplies and regional real estate after numerous management sold off assets to drive down ballooning debt.

Senior Carlton figures have been worried about his welfare in recent weeks. He’d overcome a health scare, but a fall sent him back to hospital.

Pollster Gary Morgan, who ran for Lord Mayor of Melbourne on a ticket with Elliott in 2012, said Elliott was a friend who had helped him in many ways.

“I first met John Elliott just after he graduated from the Melbourne of University,” he said.

“Elders were an important Roy Morgan client when John Elliott was CEO. When chairman of the Committee for Melbourne, he worked closely with the Victorian Labor government during Victoria’s 1990s financial problems, resulting in the South Eastern Freeway Tunnel, Dockland’s development restoration of The Old Treasury, Melbourne Circle Tram, Spring Racing Carnival, and more.

“A good person in so many ways - a sad day, my family and I will miss him.”