PGA – Pellegrino Group Australia

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We are PGA

Pellegrino Group Australia (PGA) is a family-owned and operated property development and real estate investment company.

We know our story might sound familiar – a business that’s been in the family for generations, stories told at the dinner table, and knowledge shared from father to son, but one of the unique abilities of our team is identifying the right development opportunities. We understand the value of finding the right site at the right time. Some may call it a coincidence, but since the 1970s, we’ve proven that you can create your own luck.

From restoring Victorian-style terrace homes in Melbourne to building homemaker centres in Queensland or revitalising renaissance-era wineries in Italy, we know the value of taking a building or a piece of land that has been disregarded and turning it into something spectacular.

This is what PGA does. Our name is our brand so we are committed to delivering quality outcomes and lasting relationships.

Our core business involves both development and retention of assets to provide a a balance of recurring income producing assets and high quality development stock across various sectors.

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Meet
Stephen

Property has always been a part of my life, from stories told at the dinner table about my grandfather buying and selling farmland in the Yarra Valley to going out on my own at 20 years old, after only a few years in the trade.

The early days of Pellegrino Group Australia (PGA) started with me renovating unloved terrace houses in Carlton, an inner-city suburb of Melbourne. Restoration became my core business for a decade.

Industry changes meant I had to shift my business focus from residential to retail and industrial, so I started buying old Victorian retail shopfronts along Bridge Road in Richmond which helped establish it as a premier fashion high street of inner Melbourne. My experience with terrace houses came into its own as I converted the shops back to their former glory, including restoring all the Victorian period features people love, such as wrought iron balustrades on verandahs.

As the business grew, I looked for more opportunity to create stock. We moved east of Melbourne and began developing industrial estates in Ringwood, Bayswater and Oakleigh. One of our most significant developments, Merrindale Estate in Croydon, took ten years to complete, and it’s a site that still makes us proud.

I believe the core component of my success is my ability to choose the right sites. I won’t go into an area looking for a quick opportunity. What I look for is a site that will deliver value to everyone. From suppliers to investors looking for returns to the end-user – be it a retailer who wants to give their customers a great experience or an employer who wants to create an excellent space for their employees.

After the 1993 recession, I took my business to Queensland because of new opportunities that the state offered over Victoria. I found an abundance of great sites in Queensland, including the old Post Office and Telegraph building in Cairns – a great example of finding the right site. The building was earmarked for demolition, but I convinced the local council and Australia Post to sell it to PGA, and we converted it into a international duty free store that is still operating today. Cairns got a beautifully restored building; retailers got a great new space, and visitors get to connect to a part of the area’s history every day.

Some of our most enjoyable projects have been taking old buildings in different cities in Australia and overseas and turning them into something for today, such as retail developments in inner cities and luxury hotel experiences in Italy. We give buildings that others might have knocked down a new life and a new purpose while retaining their place in history.

More recently my focus has been on Large Format retail centres and Commercial Office buildings, which provide us with a balanced recurring investment portfolio in blue-chip locations.

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Meet
Paul

Property is in my heritage, and the family connection goes back generations. I grew up discussing property at the family dinner table and going to auctions on weekends with my Dad. It was there that I learnt about the importance of buying the right site and importance of timing in the market.

I got my start in agency at my cousin’s firm, CVA Property Consultants, before moving to CBRE’s industrial team. While I never thought I would go to University, Bond University’s Bachelor in Property and Sustainable Development caught my attention.

On completion of my studies, I joined the acquisitions team at Mirvac. Looking back, I realise how fortunate I was to secure this position as the Global Financial Crisis’s impact was hitting Australia.

After four years at Mirvac, it was the right time to venture out into the private realm of property development and decided to start looking at new opportunities with my father. The years I spent learning from others and forming relationships across the industry was enormously beneficial. In the six years before joining the family business, I was pushed to be more creative when assessing a site to see its full potential. PGA is presented with different sites every day, so it’s important to determine quickly if an opportunity exists. We also have a genuine interest in various real estate sectors from commercial office to hotels.

It’s also vital that we respond to market conditions. Over the last eight years at PGA, I’ve identified the right locations and the right time to develop them, but then market conditions have changed, and we’ve been able to respond.

My vision and intent for PGA is to create a balanced investment and development company that holds certain key assets whilst developing and turning over others. We will continue to assess opportunities on their merits dependent on timing and position.

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