An industrial visionary, Victor Smorgon dies at 96

Born into the last days of the rule of the tsars in Ukraine, Smorgon's early life was lived through the tumult of the Russian Revolution and subsequent civil war with its accompanying bloodshed, famines and pogroms. His father Norman led his family to Australia in 1927.

In Melbourne, the family went into the meat business, starting a kosher butcher shop in Lygon Street, Carlton.

Smorgon soon became influential in the family business, pushing into meat exporting and supplying tinned meat to the army in World War II. In business, Smorgon was a visionary who believed in growth by taking on monopolists, whom he believed to be inherently slow on their feet.

In the postwar years, Smorgon assumed the role of leader of Smorgon Consolidated Industries, pushing into areas such as fruit canning, cardboard box manufacturing, plastics and steel, in competition with the then monopoly producer BHP. This visionary approach was combined with a pragmatism that held anything was possible for people keen to achieve.

This attitude was demonstrated when he was advised by a BHP executive that steel making would be too difficult and complex for private operators such as the Smorgons. His response was that steel production was only a process involving putting in raw materials at one end and taking the finished product out at the other. Referring to his days as a butcher, he said, "It's just like making sausages".

When SCI was broken up and divided among the clan's seven constituent families in 1995, it was Australia's largest private company, worth more than $1.5 billion. This year BRW valued overall Smorgon wealth at $2.2 billion after Smorgon Steel, the last of the family's collective business holdings, was bought by OneSteel in 2007.

Victor married Loti Kiffer in 1937. Their 72-year union produced four daughters: Ginny, Bindy, Vicki and Sandra (who died in 2007), 15 grandchildren and many great-grandchildren.

Last year the couple provided about $15 million to the National Gallery of Victoria's Masterpieces for Melbourne campaign. All up, they endowed 60 works to the NGV and a further 154 works to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. More generally, Smorgon distributed probably more than $100 million to a vast range of causes in Australia and overseas.

Former Smorgon Steel managing director Ray Horsburgh said he was "a visionary and could think very creatively to drive new business ventures". State Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu described Smorgon as "a truly remarkable Australian".

Smorgon is expected to be buried on Monday.

Rod Myer is the author of Living the Dream: The Story of Victor Smorgon.