His principal commercial activities involve importing apparel, toys and other goods into Australia from China and investments, mainly in retail companies.
[1] In 2014 Lew built a ten per cent stake in David Jones after South African retailer Woolworths launched a takeover bid for the department store.
[6] In 1981, Lew's family office Parfit Investments Pty Ltd made a takeover bid for John Martin's, an Adelaide based department store chain.
[9] The following year, another of Lew's firms Specular Investments Pty Ltd made an unsuccessful bid for eyewear retailer OPSM.
[10] By 1983 Lew and controlled entities had obtained close to a 10 percent stake in Myer Emporium Ltd.[11] In the same year he proposed a A$50 million takeover bid for the Australian branch of Cadbury Schweppes.
It bought shares in a company called Premier, a major shareholder in Coles-Myer controlled by then Executive Chair of Coles, Solomon Lew.
The funding of the buying of its own shares, the apparent involvement of the chairman and the lack of disclosure raised serious governance issues for Coles-Myer, and ended with the replacement of almost the entire board of directors and the withdrawal of significant shareholder support.
"When Coles Myer's chief financial officer, Philip Bowman, resigned and revealed the details of the transaction it brought a great deal of unwanted public attention to Lew.
He made 80 cents a share, or $8 million, in four weeks.Lew and Lindsay Fox formed a consortium to acquire Ansett Airlines after it had an administrator appointed.
[18] During this time spent negotiating, the administrators had been persuaded to continue to operate the airline despite heavy losses which reduced the amount ultimately available to creditors, which included employees owed entitlements.
These commitments and their statements that they could and would proceed with the acquisition led the trade unions with members involved in the business to support the bid.
Wallis successfully lobbied major institutional shareholders, including insurance companies, banks and large investment firms to take the rare action of voting against an incumbent director.
At the same time, Premier announced a takeover offer for Just Group, one of Australia's largest retailers which owns Just Jeans, Portmans, Dotti, Peter Alexander Sleepwear, Jay Jays, Smiggle and Jacqui E. Analysts criticised the offer for being too low and comprising less than half in cash.
[32] In 1986, Lew donated $450,000 to the National Gallery of Victoria to fund the acquisition of Glenara, a painting by Eugene von Guerard.
[33] In May 2023, the Australian Financial Review estimated Lew's net worth as A$3.97 billion as published in the Financial Review Rich List;[3] and in January 2019 his net worth was estimated by Forbes Asia as US$1.90 billion as published in the list of Australia's 50 richest people.