You're a War Profiteer, Harry

As an Australian, your first encounter with Meriton may have been a hotel party in one of their serviced apartments in your late teens. You’d think of a million different ways to sneak your twenty mates into a suite, making sure not to lock eyes with reception staff or the security cameras.

Less well known is its founder and owner, billionaire Harry Oskar Triguboff.^[1] Born in Dalian, China, his parents were Russian Jewish emigrants seeking to escape the antisemitism taking hold in Tsarist Russia. Harry recalls his father having trouble paying rent, and sharing a room with his brother when they were young.^[2]

Rather fortunately for them, the Japanese occupation of Tianjin during the Second World War was an opportunity for them to profit from trade that had previously been controlled by now interned British and American residents. After the end of WWII, Harry’s father was convicted^[3] of collaborating with the Japanese.^[4]

Seeking to escape the rising power of the communists in China, Harry’s father sent his two sons to Sydney, Australia, to be privately educated. Due to the perceived Axis collaboration of Harry’s parents, they themselves were denied visas to Australia and spent the rest of their days in Israel. At that time, he had an estimated fortune of over $50 million AUD in 2024 terms - a far cry from struggling to pay rent ten years prior.

Harry then took up the entrepreneurial mantle, buying blocks of land under the Meriton moniker and developing them into apartments. Fast forward 80 years, he is now one of the top five richest people in Australia, owning at least 10,000 rental apartments.^[5]