From paddock to Pitt Street

Robert Millner exercises immense influence in corporate Australia as the chair of Washington H. Soul Pattinson (WHSP), whose holdings totalled about $5.5 billion as at December 2019.

- KANIKA SOOD

The 118-year-old company is a conservative investor with diverse holdings, ranging from coal and resources to telecoms and pharmacies and many other sectors. The Millner family’s net worth is reportedly more than $1.1 billion.

When our photographer showed up at his property one Saturday afternoon in June, Millner met him in mud-stained blue jeans, a chambray shirt and Blundstone boots that look as if they could use a good scrub – a far cry from sharp city suits.

The two drove across the property in an all-terrain vehicle, passing cows, a dam, tall silos and a shed where a tractor idled.

“It’s a very intense farm; we’ve got irrigation and we run cattle. So I’ve got three-and-a-half men that look after that for me,” says Millner. “[We] predominantly grow lucerne hay [alfalfa]. We tried poppies but we didn’t grow any last year. I didn’t have enough water for it.

Millner is the fourth generation of the extended Pattinson clan to lead the business. His son, Tom Millner, also sits on the board and is a partner and co-portfolio manager at Contact Asset Management, an Australian equities investment manager owned by WHSP.

Highfield, as the farm is called, was initially bought by Robert’s parents when he was nine years old (he later expanded the holding).

He attended boarding school at Sydney’s inner-west Newington College, and after a brief career as a stockbroker returned to work on the farm, which sells its produce, until the age of 34.

WHSP started life in 1902 as a pharmacy when Robert’s great-grandfather, Lewy Pattinson, bought the business of fellow pharmacist and friend Washington Soul.