MGD Private

MGD Private

MGD Private was founded in 1976 and is led by Executive Chairman Brett Schmidt. The firm operates from Brisbane and has spent 49 years advising Australia's controlling business families through enterprise exits, generational transitions and legacy structuring. Its stated client base includes entrepreneurs and family offices with complex cross-border capital needs. The firm cites five-time MotoGP World Champion Mick Doohan as a private client since 1998. The firm advises on an institutional open-architecture model, bringing together specialist partners across tax, legal, corporate governance and transactions to serve each family’s investment strategy. Instead of promoting a single fund, MGD operates through an Investment Governance pillar that formalizes charters, liquidity strategies and delegation frameworks. The firm chairs investment committees directly and has built a pipeline spanning private credit, real estate and infrastructure. Deployment guidance is anchored to the AUD 2.2bn-plus portfolio it advises, giving families access to opportunities typically secured only through institutional networks. Geographic focus remains Australia-headquartered, but the advisory footprint extends to families with international migration and foreign-investment requirements. MGD Private fields an eight-person leadership team including Paul Bodimeade as Head of Corporate Finance and Ling Dias as Head of Tax, positioning it as a compact advisory practice rather than a large-scale asset gatherer. Executive Chairman Brett Schmidt is joined by Investment Specialist Tom Schmidt, indicating a multi-generational leadership team within the firm itself. The firm provides a Next Generation program that educates rising family members on enterprise structure, governance language and purpose-driven investment. MGD does not operate a proprietary fund family or disclose a balance-sheet deployment; its model centers on curating external managers and direct co-investment processes through an open-architecture advice partnership. MGD Private’s structural differentiator is its embedded governance-first posture: the firm acts as an outsourced family office that designs family councils, ownership protocols and succession strategies before any capital is allocated. This formalized Family Enterprise Governance framework separates MGD from typical wealth managers by treating the operating business, family dynamics and investment portfolio as one integrated mandate. For founder-led families navigating exit or generational handover, the governance construct becomes the primary product, with investment execution following the governance design.