Draft:Monmia Properties

Monmia co-founder Morris Majtlis was born in 1920 to a Polish Jewish family. He spent most of his early 20s interned at Nazi labour camps, and fled to Australia in 1951 as the sole surviving member of his family.^[1] He subsequently entered the real estate business and in 1959, founded the Monmia group with brother-in-law Sam Kochen. They began subdividing land and established a home-building division, Monmia Homes, in 1963.^[2] The business experienced rapid growth throughout the 1960s. Between 1967 1970, over a thousand residential blocks and homes were subdivided in the Waverley area alone.^[3][4]

In 1970, Majtlis and Kochen were approached by Nathan Jacobson and Tad Szental, who were executives of Huntingdale-based plastics manufacturer Elmaco Industries.^[5] They planned to offload their shares in Elmaco for $4m, some of which they sought to invest in Monmia. The local property market had been experiencing unprecedented growth at the time, and the potential combination of Monmia's industry knowledge with strong capital backing presented a strong opportunity for all involved.

The Monmia group of companies were consolidated as a private entity, Monmia Properties, in April 1970. Jacobson, a prominent lawyer and former president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, was elected chairman.^[6] Szental, managing director and co-founder of Emalco, joined Monmia's board as the managing director. Kochen became the manager of Monmia's residential construction arm.

Immediately after its inception, vast tracts of land across Melbourne were purchased. By mid-October 1970, some 84 homes were in the course of construction.