Peregrine Corporation

Fathi (Fred) Shahin and his Palestinian family[2] moved to Lebanon during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, when he was ten years old. Shahin went to night school to qualify as an accountant. After working for the United Nations for 27 years, he and his family migrated to Australia. When he could not find work, he bought a BP service station in the Adelaide suburb of Woodville, and the family lived on site.[3] Peregrine was founded in 1984 with the purchase of the service station, soon followed by a chain of Smokemart (tobacco retailer) stores across Adelaide.[4] After Fred's death, three of his sons, Yasser, Khalil (Charlie) and Samer (Sam) took over the business.[3]

Peregrine bought the Mobil fuel outlets in South Australia in 2010 and 25 company-owned BP outlets in 2014.[5] The acquired sites were rebranded and upgraded to 24-hour On The Run sites. By June 2014, Peregrine owned a chain of 24-hour convenience stores and service stations operating under the On The Run brand.[1] Yasser Shahin and family were included on the BRW Rich 200 list in 2014.[3]

In 2015 Peregrine announced plans to redevelop the former Mitsubishi Motors Australia test site outside Tailem Bend as The Bend Motorsport Park, to be opened in 2017, and in May 2017, announced the purchase of the Mallala Motor Sport Park.[6]

In 2016 Peregrine Corporation was listed at number 14 in The Australian Financial Review's "Top 500 Private Companies", with an estimated annual revenue of A$1.9 billion .[7]

Many of the On the Run sites operate alongside other brands such as Subway, Brumby's Bakeries, Oporto, and Wendy's.[4][3]

Peregrine brought the Krispy Kreme doughnut franchise to South Australia and also runs the Mexican food franchise Guzman Y Gomez. As of 2019, OTR had 145 outlets in South Australia, and one in Victoria, and is South Australia's biggest seller of barista-made espresso coffee.[2]

As of 2020, Peregrine was one of the top 15 private companies in Australia, and the largest in South Australia. Its annual revenue was over A$2 billion , and it employed more than 3,500 people.[1]

Redevelopment of an On The Run Store dumped 2,000 tonnes (2,200 short tons) of contaminated carcinogenic[8] soil in the Adelaide Hills. For this sustained breach of law, fines of $28,000 were levied against the operators of Peregrine Corporation and associated business, Nasmin Pty Ltd.[9]

In 2018 the OTR brand of the company received significant criticism from consumers and environmental groups[10][11] for a decision to ban reusable coffee cups, amongst growing concerns of the negative effect of the 1.2 billion disposable cups that end-up in landfill in Australia each year.[12]

A class action on behalf of 1,050 On The Run workers was lodged with the Australian Federal Court on 13 May 2020. The company was accused of failing to pay overtime, underpaying staff and misusing its traineeship program as a method to reduce workers' pay, dating back to 2014 and involving all stores in South Australia. OTR allegedly used eight different wage minimisation tactics that enabled gross underpayment of its staff. In March 2020, the Federal Court had upheld a separate decision by South Australia's Employment Tribunal to award A$2,342 to an OTR employee who had been underpaid.[13]

In 2020 there was opposition by local residents to a planned OTR outlet on Kensington Road in Kensington Park,[14] and to the expansion of the Peregrine headquarters building in Kensington to a height of seven storeys with a helipad on top of the building.[15][16]

In August 2020 Peregrine was ordered by the South Australian Employment Tribunal to pay A$65,000 to an employee after being found to have deliberately underpaid him over the period of a about a year in 2016, at an OTR at Fulham.[17]

• Official website