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The matriarch of the billionaire Fox family has expressed anger at what she says are false suggestions that husband Lindsay Fox has dementia and can’t make significant decisions about his multibillion-dollar logistics empire.
Paula Fox spoke to this masthead from Paris to vehemently defend the trucking magnate, vowing to find out “what is going on” with eldest son Peter Fox, who it was announced on Wednesday would not return as Linfox executive chairman after a lengthy sabbatical.
Paula Fox said that Peter had done no work for seven months and the desire for new leadership was a family decision.
She denied that Lindsay Fox, 89, no longer had the mental acuity to make corporate decisions, and said a Herald Sun story saying so, sourced to a “family friend”, was false and planted by someone close to Peter.
“He might forget little things, but Lindsay went to work the other day and negotiated a deal for $100 million. How could they say that?” Paula Fox asked.
Paula Fox said her husband’s only significant health issue was difficulties with his legs, which caused him to use a wheelchair occasionally. The couple married in 1959 and have five living children and 17 grandchildren.
“He is not on any medication for dementia. I know because I do his pills every day,” said Paula Fox, who was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in January for her services to health and other philanthropic work.
“He is 89 years old. Sure, he forgets things. I forget things. Of course we do.
“I think we need to talk to Peter and find out what is going on and [who is] feeding the media. I think it is one particular person,” she said, without disclosing the identity of that person.
The remarks provide an astonishing insight into tensions within one of Australia’s richest, most influential, private and philanthropic families.
Tensions between the Fox sons is longstanding. Younger brothers Andrew and David Fox, also Linfox board directors, respectively run the Linfox Property Group, which owns the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit, and Linfox Airports, which controls Melbourne’s Avalon and Essendon Fields airports.
Peter Fox was executive chairman of the logistics arm of the business his father founded as a trucking company 70 years ago, which is the main source of Lindsay Fox’s $5.7 billion fortune.
An email to staff announced Peter Fox was retiring from his role and the family would “embark on a new governance model, beginning with the appointment of independent chairs for operational businesses”.
This masthead was unable to contact Peter Fox overseas.
Paula Fox said that her eldest son, who is 63, had endured his own health difficulties and needed to accept that he was no longer the best person to run the company.
Peter Fox will become a non-executive director on the boards of Linfox Logistics Australia and New Zealand and Linfox International. He will continue as chair of cash transport business Armaguard, which has been suffering financially due to low consumer demand for cash.
Paula also cited Peter’s recent health issues, saying: “That is why Dennis Richardson has come along – an amazing man – to help us out until we find someone.”
Richardson, a former secretary of the defence department, has served as a Linfox director since 2017 and late last year became interim chairman for the company’s Australian operations. That position is now permanent, part of a wider reorganisation of the company that will involve independent chairs being appointed to the different operational divisions, replacing family members.
“They have to accept it is time to move on,” Paula Fox said. “Peter will come back as a director. He will get the same salary – and he gets a really good salary. He hasn’t worked for six or seven months, and he is getting paid the same amount of money for doing nothing.”
She said the restructure was supported by David and Andrew but was made by the entire family.
“This was a family decision. It is not just Andrew and David.
“Peter retires next year, and we need to be looking for a new CEO. It is so important – our business is so big.”
She also confirmed that long-time family adviser Bill Kelty, a former union chief, had returned to assist the business.
“Armaguard is Peter’s and that is shocking. We’ve really had to work with Bill Kelty on Armaguard.”
Kelty retired last year after 26 years working with the Foxes but returned at the request of the family.
“They had a couple of problems they needed to fix, so he came back for a couple of months,” a source at the business not authorised to speak publicly said. “He fixed some and some he couldn’t quite get resolved.”
Lindsay and Paula Fox plan to spend the next 10 weeks in Europe living on the family’s superyacht and said that Peter was also in Europe as part of his sabbatical.
Paula Fox said she had arrived with Lindsay in Paris a day ago and woke early on Wednesday to read the distressing reports about Lindsay’s cognitive health.
“We went to dinner last night, and he was in such a good mood. We were laughing and happy and he was talking to people in the restaurant. I mean, Lindsay loves people. I can’t understand how something like that would get into the Herald [Sun].”
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