Solomon Lew

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Australian businessman (born 1945)

title: "Solomon Lew" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["australian-businesspeople-in-retailing", "businesspeople-from-melbourne", "australian-jews", "1945-births", "living-people", "australian-billionaires", "people-from-brunswick,-victoria"] description: "Australian businessman (born 1945)" topic_path: "geography/australia" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Lew" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Australian businessman (born 1945) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]

FieldValue
nameSolomon Lew
birth_date
birth_placeBrunswick, Melbourne, Australia
occupationBusinessman
Chairman of Premier Investments
years active1963−present
spouseRose Lew (separated)
educationMount Scopus Memorial College
children
website
::

| name = Solomon Lew | image = | caption = | birth_date = | birth_place = Brunswick, Melbourne, Australia | occupation = Businessman Chairman of Premier Investments | years active = 1963−present | spouse = Rose Lew (separated) | partner = | education = Mount Scopus Memorial College | children = | alma_mater = | website = | relations = | footnotes =

Solomon Lew (born 22 March 1945) is an Australian businessman. His principal commercial activities involve importing apparel, toys and other goods into Australia from China and investments, mainly in retail companies.

As a teenager, Lew supplied dresses to the Myer Emporium in Melbourne using his company Voyager Solo. In 2014 Lew built a ten per cent stake in David Jones after South African retailer Woolworths launched a takeover bid for the department store. Lew was formerly a director then chairman of Coles Myer until voted out by shareholders. He was also involved in an attempt to resurrect Ansett with Lindsay Fox following its collapse in September 2001. In 2008 he returned to the board of his public company, Premier Investments, and became its chairman.

In 2016 he became the first Australian to be inducted into the World Retail Hall of Fame, which recognises the lifetime achievements of retail "legends".

Early life

Lew was born in Melbourne to Esther () and Pinkus Lew (originally Lewkowicz), Polish Jews from Częstochowa who immigrated to Australia during the Interwar period. His father was active in Melbourne's Jewish community and was vice-president of a landsmanshaft for Częstochowa Jews. Pinkus Lew established a textiles business in Flinders Lane, but died when his son was 12 years old.

Lew was educated at Mount Scopus Memorial College. He established his first business, Voyager Solo, at the age of 18. He studied accounting and commerce at night school.

Business career

In 1981, Lew's family office Parfit Investments Pty Ltd made a takeover bid for John Martin's, an Adelaide based department store chain. The following year, another of Lew's firms Specular Investments Pty Ltd made an unsuccessful bid for eyewear retailer OPSM.

By 1983 Lew and controlled entities had obtained close to a 10 percent stake in Myer Emporium Ltd. In the same year he proposed a A$50 million takeover bid for the Australian branch of Cadbury Schweppes.

Yannon transaction

While chairman of Coles Myer, Lew involved Coles Myer in a deal with a private company Yannon Pty Ltd which ultimately lost Coles Myer 18 million. An internal Coles investigation endorsed Lew's claim that he knew nothing of the deal, and a subsequent four-year investigation by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) ended with no charges being pursued.

ASIC chairman Alan Cameron, acknowledged during the press conference to announce the outcome of the investigation that: "It is worth saying that the original loss suffered by Coles Myer was about 18 million, and the recovery made by Coles Myer was in excess of 12 million." Lew contributed to this 1996 settlement with Coles-Myer. Cameron also said that it was "clearly true" that Lew was not guilty of any breaches of the law. When asked if he believed Lew was innocent, Cameron replied: "of course."

ABC Radio's PM program described the transaction:

When Coles Myer's chief financial officer, Philip Bowman, resigned and revealed the details of the transaction it brought a great deal of unwanted public attention to Lew. Bowman's revelations prompted an investigation into whether the Yannon transaction broke the Corporations Law or other laws that lasted five years and gathered a quarter of a million pages of documents and twelve thousand pages of evidence. The ASIC recommended criminal prosecution against Lew in its brief, although the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, who had the final decision, decided not to proceed with criminal charges against Lew, Lew's advisers, or those working within Coles Myer. The Chairman of ASIC told the ABC:

The Etiket transaction

Another controversial business transaction involving Lew related to a single purpose trust called Etiket. The beneficiaries were Lew's family. The trust was used to acquire 2% of Coles Myer in 1989, at a time of high interest rates. Lew offered competing explanations for what happened next. But the end result was that the Coles Myer shares were assigned to Premier Investments for an 8 million profit. A Queen's Counsel who investigated the transaction said:

TESNA

Lew and Lindsay Fox formed a consortium to acquire Ansett Airlines after it had an administrator appointed. They sought and obtained the exclusive right to negotiate to purchase the airline. They obtained the agreement of various stakeholders in the airline, including trade union members and their representatives. Greg Combet, the secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions said Lew had breached 'repeated commitments'. During this time spent negotiating, the administrators had been persuaded to continue to operate the airline despite heavy losses which reduced the amount ultimately available to creditors, which included employees owed entitlements. Lew and Fox had committed to take on 183 million of these entitlement obligations if they acquired the company. These commitments and their statements that they could and would proceed with the acquisition led the trade unions with members involved in the business to support the bid. The consequence of Lew's withdrawal was much embarrassment for the ACTU, which had strongly supported the Lew-Fox bid.

Coles Myer board

In September 2002, a resolution to remove Lew from the Board of Coles Myer was successful after Stan Wallis, the chairman of the company, campaigned for Lew's removal. Wallis successfully lobbied major institutional shareholders, including insurance companies, banks and large investment firms to take the rare action of voting against an incumbent director. Prior to the vote, Lew campaigned heavily spending an estimated 10 million campaigning for his re-election focusing mainly on smaller shareholders. He was successful in obtaining millions of proxies but they were ultimately insufficient.

Premier Investments, Just Group and Myer deal

In March 2008, Lew returned to the public company stage, rejoining the board of the listed company Premier Investments, as its chairman. At the same time, Premier announced a takeover offer for Just Group, one of Australia's largest retailers which owns Just Jeans, Portmans, Dotti, Peter Alexander Sleepwear, Jay Jays, Smiggle and Jacqui E. Analysts criticised the offer for being too low and comprising less than half in cash. In publicly explaining his offer, Lew said Just Group was trading worse than had been disclosed to the investment community.

Premier's stationery brand Smiggle was profitable in its first year in the United Kingdom after launching in 2015. The brand was subsequently launched in Hong Kong and Malaysia in 2016. Smiggle's first global flagship store was opened on London's Oxford Street in 2018, along with the first concession outlet in department store Selfridges.

Premier Investments owns a 31 per cent stake in Myer. It also holds a 25.5 per cent stake in appliance maker Breville worth $970.5 million.

In late October 2024, Premier and Myer announced they had reached a deal for Myer to buy Premier's Apparel Brands division (comprising the fashion brands Just Jeans, Jay Jays, Jacqui E, Portmans and Dotti). As part of the transaction, Myer will issue new shares (worth $863.78 million) to Premier Investments, while Premier will contribute $82 million to the business. Lew will join the Myer board as a non-executive director and the deal would make him Myer's largest shareholder with a personal stake of 26.8 per cent. The deal was completed in January 2025.

Personal life

In 2014 Lew separated from Rosie Lew , his wife of forty years. Their three children are active in the Lew's business empire including Peter, who is the chairman of P Lew Investment Group and the owner of the BrandBank Group of Companies. He is married to Ally Lew and has three children; Steven, who married Sarah Nowoweiski in 2003 and filed for divorce in 2011. and Jacqueline, who married Adam Priester in 1999 and filed for divorce in 2011. They have four children.

Lew is Jewish and is a member of the Chabad House synagogue in Malvern, Victoria. He was active in the United Israel Appeal from the late 1960s and in the early 1980s founded its Action for Israel division.

In 1986, Lew donated $450,000 to the National Gallery of Victoria to fund the acquisition of Glenara, a painting by Eugene von Guerard.

In 1999, each of his children were gifted 170 million from the "Lew Custodian Trust".

Net worth

, Lew's net worth was assessed by the Australian Financial Review as 4.11 billion, published in the 2025 Rich List. , Lew was one of seven living Australians who have appeared in every Financial Review Rich List, or its predecessor, the BRW Rich 200, since it was first published in 1984.

In January 2019 his net worth was estimated by Forbes Asia as 1.46 billion as published in the list of Australia's 50 richest people; and Lew was ranked 33rd on The Australian's Richest 250 List.

::data[format=table] | Year | Financial Review Rich List | Forbes Australia's 50 richest | Rank | Net worth | Rank | Net worth | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | url=http://www.brw.com.au/p/lists/rich-200/2014/brw_rich_list_bruce_gordon_e9RYHKaJ7tFtzGca2Zd5lL |title=BRW Rich 200 list 2014: 34. Bruce Gordon |journal=BRW |date=27 June 2014 |access-date=29 June 2014 |location=Sydney }} | | | | | | | | url=https://www.forbes.com/australia-billionaires/list/#tab:overall|title=2015 Australia's 50 Richest|access-date=10 June 2015|work=Forbes Asia|date=March 2015 }} | | | | | | | | url=http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-26/brw-rich-list-topped-by-harry-triguboff/7448044 |title=BRW rich list topped by Harry Triguboff, Gina Rinehart slips to fourth |work=ABC News |access-date=26 May 2016 |date=26 May 2016}} | | | | | | | | url=http://www.afr.com/leadership/afr-lists/rich-list/financial-review-rich-list-2017-20170525-gwcvr6 |editor=Stensholt, John |title=Financial Review Rich List 2017 |work=Australian Financial Review |date=25 May 2017 |access-date=8 June 2017 }} | | $2.38 billion | | | | | | url=http://www.afr.com/brand/afr-magazine/rich-list-overview-20180413-h0yqo5|title=2018 AFR Rich List: Who are Australia's richest people?|work=Australian Financial Review|publisher=Fairfax Media|date=25 May 2018|last=Stensholt|first=John|access-date=26 May 2018}} | | $2.55 billion | | | | | | url=https://www.afr.com/rich-list/australia-s-10-wealthiest-people-revealed-20190529-p51sj0|title=Australia's 200 richest people revealed|work=Australian Financial Review|publisher=Nine Entertainment|date=30 May 2019|last=Bailey|first=Michael|access-date=31 May 2019}} | | $2.83 billion | 28 | $1.46 billion | | | | url=https://www.afr.com/rich-list/the-10-richest-australians-revealed-20201028-p569c7|url-access=subscription|title=The full list: Australia's wealthiest 200 revealed|work=Australian Financial Review|publisher=Nine Entertainment|date=30 October 2020|author1=Bailey, Michael|author2=Sprague, Julie-anne|access-date=31 October 2020}} | | $3.72 billion | | | | | | author1=Bailey, Michael |author2=Sprague, Julie-anne |url=https://www.afr.com/rich-list/australia-s-10-richest-people-revealed-20210526-p57vfr |title=The 200 richest people in Australia revealed |work=Australian Financial Review |date=27 May 2021 |access-date=28 May 2021}} | | $4.37 billion | | | | | | 2022 | | $4.20 billion | | | | | | author1=Bailey, Michael |author2=Sprague, Julie-anne |url=https://www.afr.com/rich-list/australia-s-10-richest-people-revealed-20230523-p5dapa |title=The 200 richest people in Australia revealed |work=Australian Financial Review |date=26 May 2023 |access-date=6 June 2023}} | | $3.97 billion | | | | | | author1=Redrup, Yolanda |author2=Bailey, Michael |url=https://www.afr.com/rich-list/australia-s-10-richest-people-revealed-20240521-p5jfe4 |title=Australia's wealthiest 200 now control $625b |work=Australian Financial Review |date=30 May 2024 |access-date=18 September 2024}} | | $4.72 billion | | | | | | author1=Redrup, Yolanda |url=https://www.afr.com/rich-list/australia-s-wealthiest-200-revealed-fortunes-blow-past-667b-20250509-p5lxxb |title=Australia's wealthiest 200 revealed, fortunes blow past $667b |work=Australian Financial Review |date=30 May 2025 |access-date=31 May 2025 |url-access=subscription }} | | $4.11 billion | | | | | ::

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References

References

  1. Low, Catie. (23 September 2016). "Solomon Lew: the billionaire behind Smiggle, FCUK and Country Road". [[Sydney Morning Herald]].
  2. (14 April 2016). "Retail allows people to dream, Lew says". [[SBS World News]].
  3. Callick, Rowan. (19 October 1995). "Rise and falter of Solomon Lew". [[Australian Financial Review]].
  4. "Sefer Ts'ensṭoḥov". Czechstochowa Jews.
  5. (3 March 1981). "Victorian after John Martin". Canberra Times.
  6. (9 June 1982). "OPSM fights bid". [[Canberra Times]].
  7. (22 February 1983). "Share raid to 'shore up' Myer". Canberra Times.
  8. (24 June 1983). "Lew bid to convert Cadbury Schweppes to Australian status". Canberra Times.
  9. Stevens, Matthew. (26 April 2008). "Lew pressured to reveal what he knows". [[The Australian]].
  10. Snowdon, Karon. (6 January 2000). "No charges to be laid over Yannon affair".
  11. "Yannon Matter Concludes".
  12. "PM - Yannon affair players remain silent".
  13. "ABC Radio National - Background Briefing: 22 October 1995 - Coles-Myer".
  14. "Fox and Lew ditch Ansett".
  15. (18 October 2002). "Lew puts mouse where his money is". [[The Age]].
  16. (1 November 2002). "Wisdom of Solomon". [[Labor Council of NSW]].
  17. (21 September 2015). "Solomon Lew says success of Smiggle down to good planning". [[Australian Financial Review]].
  18. (18 September 2015). "Pencils and PJs the secret of Solomon Lew's Premier Investments success". The Australian Financial Review.
  19. (20 September 2018). "Solomon Lew makes Smiggle a global growth option". Australian Financial Review.
  20. Loussikian, Kylar. (2024-06-24). "Myer outlines massive expansion plan with Just Jeans, Jay Jays buy".
  21. Yun, Jessica. (2024-03-26). "Smiggle, Peter Alexander slated to become standalone companies in 2025".
  22. Ilanbey, Sumeyya. (2024-10-29). "Myer buys billionaire Solomon Lew's clothing brands in $950m deal".
  23. Glover, April. (2024-10-29). "Myer buys Jay Jays, Just Jeans and Dotti in $950m mega deal".
  24. Ainsworth, Kate. (2025-01-23). "Myer seals 'one of the most significant' deals with Premier merger". ABC News.
  25. (12 February 2014). "Retail king Solomon Lew and wife Rosie end marriage". [[Australian Financial Review]].
  26. (2012-04-15). "Bitter spat as Lew fights for privacy and his fortune".
  27. Houston, Cameron. (25 September 2011). "Synagogue row led to Lew rumble". [[The Age]].
  28. Houston, Cameron. (15 April 2012). "Fractured dynasty bids for privacy – Solomon Lew is taking risky action to protect his family's fortune from the former partners of his children". [[Sydney Morning Herald]].
  29. (15 May 1981). "Multi-action projected for Israel". The Australian Jewish News.
  30. (5 June 1986). "Couple's 'gift' to art gallery". The Australian Jewish Times.
  31. (27 December 2011). "Billionaires Solomon and Rose Lew fight to save family fortune". [[Herald Sun]].
  32. Thomson, James. (22 May 2013). "Celebrating 30 years of the Rich 200". BRW Rich 200.
  33. "Forbes Billionaires". [[The Australian]].
  34. D'Angelo Fisher, Leo. (25 May 2011). "Gift of Gifting a Hard Sell". [[BRW (magazine).
  35. "Australia's Richest 250". [[The Australian]].
  36. (27 June 2014). "BRW Rich 200 list 2014: 34. Bruce Gordon". [[Business Review Weekly.
  37. (January 2014). "2014 Australia's 50 Richest". Forbes Asia.
  38. (March 2015). "2015 Australia's 50 Richest". Forbes Asia.
  39. (26 May 2016). "BRW rich list topped by Harry Triguboff, Gina Rinehart slips to fourth". ABC News.
  40. (January 2016). "2016 Australia's 50 Richest". Forbes Asia.
  41. (25 May 2017). "Financial Review Rich List 2017". [[Australian Financial Review]].
  42. Stensholt, John. (25 May 2018). "2018 AFR Rich List: Who are Australia's richest people?". Fairfax Media.
  43. Bailey, Michael. (30 May 2019). "Australia's 200 richest people revealed". Nine Entertainment.
  44. (15 January 2019). "#28: Solomon Lew". [[Forbes Asia]].
  45. (30 October 2020). "The full list: Australia's wealthiest 200 revealed". Nine Entertainment.
  46. (27 May 2021). "The 200 richest people in Australia revealed". [[Australian Financial Review]].
  47. (26 May 2023). "The 200 richest people in Australia revealed". [[Australian Financial Review]].
  48. (30 May 2024). "Australia's wealthiest 200 now control $625b". [[Australian Financial Review]].
  49. (30 May 2025). "Australia's wealthiest 200 revealed, fortunes blow past $667b". [[Australian Financial Review]].

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australian-businesspeople-in-retailingbusinesspeople-from-melbourneaustralian-jews1945-birthsliving-peopleaustralian-billionairespeople-from-brunswick,-victoria