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Shane Williams Technology Advisory Technology Advisor to Family Business Boards & Family Offices | Founder-Era Technical Debt → Valuation & Transition Risk | Manufacturing & Industrial

21/10/2026

Will Strange bought two manufacturing businesses and found a big thick bank of paper on the fabrication floor.
"They're built to stay, they're built to last, but they're not built to grow."
Not a criticism. That's what 30 years of a family running it well looks like. It's also the opportunity.

Full episode: https://player.captivate.fm/episode/30f2ee2d-cbf9-4c12-a5a6-6fac35a4c6b6

Murray Street Vineyards, a winery at Greenock in South Australias Barossa Valley, was founded in 2001 by William (Bill) ...
21/10/2026

Murray Street Vineyards, a winery at Greenock in South Australias Barossa Valley, was founded in 2001 by William (Bill) Jahnke, an American investment banker, and Barossa winemaker Andrew Seppelt. The winery on the estate was finished in 2007, in time for vintage.

In 2014 the business became fully family-owned, when Janai Brengman joined her father as co-owner. In October 2026 they sold the winery, the brand, the cellar door and the vineyards to Sandy Oatley and his daughter Nicky, of A.G. Oatley Wines.

Janai put it this way: We are incredibly proud of the wines and community we have built over the past 25 years, and we are confident the Oatley family will guide the brand into its next exciting chapter. Sandy said the Oatleys were honoured to be its next custodians, and that as a family business themselves they share the values that shaped Murray Street.

Murray Street has gone from one father and daughter to another, and the Oatleys say they want to build on the legacy Bill and Janai created.

Congratulations to Bill Jahnke and Janai Brengman on 25 years of Murray Street, and to Sandy and Nicky Oatley on taking it on.

"The Murray Street Vineyards winery and estate at Greenock".

𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭: "𝐈𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐞: 𝐎𝐚𝐭𝐥𝐞𝐲 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐖𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬".

19/10/2026

You want someone to carry on what you built. They have a family future of their own.

I sat down with Richard Boyce, a family enterprise specialist from a fifth-generation business family, to talk about selling to a family office. The buying family brings its own hopes for the next generation. I reckon understanding those matters just as much as explaining what you hope they’ll preserve.

Full episode: https://myshoutpodcast.com/episode/could-a-family-office-buy-the-business-your-kids-dont-want

19/10/2026

Will Strange bought two manufacturing businesses and found a big thick bank of paper on the fabrication floor.

"They're built to stay, they're built to last, but they're not built to grow."

Not a criticism. That's what 30 years of a family running it well looks like. It's also the opportunity.

Full episode: https://player.captivate.fm/episode/30f2ee2d-cbf9-4c12-a5a6-6fac35a4c6b6

15/10/2026

Justin Langer watched Steve Smith in the nets and told Ricky Ponting he'd never play Test cricket. Not how Langer did it.

Kate Burke uses that story with farming parents.

"Langer's definition of a good cricketer was someone who was like him."

The next generation can do it a thousand ways that look wrong to you. Full episode:
https://player.captivate.fm/episode/7917075b-3046-4833-935b-060d7757d73a

14/10/2026

Halfway through buying a business, Will Strange got an anonymous message from someone inside it. Here's what they're not showing you.

"Some people would say that's worthy of pulling out. I assessed it as worthy of fixing."

He bought it. The messenger didn't last long. Full episode: https://player.captivate.fm/episode/30f2ee2d-cbf9-4c12-a5a6-6fac35a4c6b6

In 1982, brothers Mario and Gaetano Bongiorno opened a cheese factory in Tullamarine, on Melbourne's northern edge, maki...
14/10/2026

In 1982, brothers Mario and Gaetano Bongiorno opened a cheese factory in Tullamarine, on Melbourne's northern edge, making ricotta the way their father Luciano had taught them in the mountains of Sortino in Italy. Forty-odd years later the shopfront still sells hot ricotta straight from the vat, bring your own saucepan, and took home six golds at the 2025 Australian Dairy Awards.
Last November the family sold a majority stake to Apta Group, a food investor whose stated thesis is backing Australian manufacturers at the point of succession.

Here's the detail I keep coming back to. Emil Parthenides (EP Advisors, who ran the process for the family) said the objective was never a full exit. Multinational dairy companies and private equity both came knocking. The family chose the partner committed to keeping the second generation running the business and backing its export push into Asia.

Selling most of your company and keeping your life's work are not opposites. Done well, partial liquidity is how a family takes risk off the table without leaving the room. The Bongiornos still make the cheese. Someone else now helps carry it further. Congratulations to the Bongiorno family on 44 years, and on finding a partner that lets them keep making the cheese.



Image: Alba Cheese. Source image from Alba Cheese.

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